France blames Iran for supermarket fridge attacks. What’s known, what remains unclear, and how to secure exposed controllers. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps was behind the attacks on supermarket fridges in France on 11 and 12 October. He said they hit 700 sites and raised refrigerator temperatures. Some stores threw away their entire stock of perishable food, and fires broke out in several. “France attributes destabilization and sabotage campaigns against French interests to the Islamic Republic of Iran (electronic and cyber center of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran – IRGC-ECC).” reads the announcement published by French cybersecurity agency ANSSI. “Following its investigation, C4 is able to attribute these destructive actions to the Shahid Kaveh cyber-offensive unit, affiliated with the electronic and cyber center of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran (IRGC-ECC): infrastructure characteristics, use of signing tools, relay of the attack by a propaganda organ linked to Shahid Kaveh, traces of the use of Persian in the attack infrastructure.” Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot described the attack as “unprecedented in both its scale and its level of aggression” and called it the first major cyber sabotage operation on French soil. He promised EU-level sanctions, and France summoned the Iranian ambassador. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the response should be strong, adding that she had only just learned about France’s attribution. “I can confirm that this attack was carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said of the cyberattacks on French supermarkets, which occurred on October 11 and 12, and reported Le Monde. “This attack is unprecedented in both its scale and its level of aggression,” said Barrot. “It marks the first large-scale cyberattack aimed at sabotage on our national territory, and it constitutes a major attack on the nation’s interests and the security of the French people.” “We will implement sanctions at the European level against all those responsible,” he added. Paris prosecutors opened a judicial investigation into the head of Shahid Kaveh, an offensive cyber unit tied to the Guards’ Electronic and Cyber Center, and his two deputies. Anyone else they identify can be added to the case. The attribution cites shared infrastructure, attack tools, Persian-language traces, and amplification by a group-linked propaganda outlet. French authorities say Iranian cyber operations targeting French interests date back to at least 2020. Previous incidents include a planned attack against Charlie Hebdo, a 2023 breach of its online store attributed to Emennet Pasargad, and a 2024 attempt to hijack digital advertising kiosks to display anti-Israel messages ahead of the Paris Olympics. C4 attributes these operations to the IRGC-linked Shahid Shoostari unit. France wasn’t alone. On 2 November, supermarkets in at least nine other European countries reported a suspected attack on their freezer systems. Barrot spoke only about the French case, so nothing official yet ties the second wave to Iran. This is where we need to be careful. When a government names a country as responsible for an attack, that’s a serious accusation. But the reports I’ve read don’t explain the technical evidence behind it. We should treat it as an official claim, not a proven fact, and stick to what we know. Fear and uncertainty can be used to spread distrust, and that risk applies to all sides involved in this story. The key issue isn’t just identifying the attackers, but understanding whether someone is exploiting these incidents to promote a hybrid warfare narrative. Hacktivist claims may serve propaganda and visibility more than reflect actual responsibility. If French investigations confirm Iran’s role in the October attacks, the pro-Russian groups claiming November’s incidents could face a serious credibility problem. They may have tried to take credit for someone else’s operations. Still, their involvement in some incidents remains possible. In today’s hybrid warfare, uncertain attribution, strategic ambiguity, and information manipulation make it increasingly difficult to separate real attacks from propaganda. The method used in supermarket fridge attacks, at least, is documented. On 5 November, CISA, the FBI and other US agencies published a fact sheet on the same kind of activity. The actors may exploit vulnerabilities or weaknesses in unpatched or internet-accessible controllers to remotely alter settings and force units into continuous heating and defrost cycles, which can cause widespread inventory loss and equipment hazards. The agencies list three ways in: bypassing authentication, injecting code and weak settings. They also warn that operators can lose sight of the real temperatures, which is a bad thing to discover after the cheese has gone. The fixes are dull and they work. Keep controllers off the internet, and if you need remote access, put an updated firewall in front of it. Separate industrial devices from the office network, change default passwords, add phishing-resistant multifactor authentication, patch firmware and replace devices the maker no longer supports. Then limit who can change settings with an allowlist of approved devices and IP addresses. Keep tested backups offsite and offline, turn on logging and read the logs. The last control is the cheapest: Define and maintain reasonable setpoint limits for devices operating downstream of controllers to stay within safe ranges and establish alerting for deviations. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, Iran)
Taiwanese vendor QNAP urges users to update Plex Media Server after reports of NAS compromises through the Plex2Shell vulnerability chain. QNAP urges users to update Plex Media Server through the QNAP App Center after reports that threat actors exploited the Plex2Shell vulnerability chain to compromise NAS devices. “QNAP has received reports from some users that Plex Media Server on their NAS appears to have been compromised through these vulnerabilities, and QNAP Technical Support is assisting the affected usersadvisory published by QNAP. ” reads the report published by the vendor. “The QNAP Product Security Incident Response Team (QNAP PSIRT) has confirmed that the vulnerabilities exist only in Plex Media Server; QTS, QuTS hero, and other QNAP operating systems are not themselves affected.” Plex Media Server is designed to make movies, music, and other media available across devices. But when a server is exposed to the internet and runs vulnerable software, it can become an entry point for attackers who have little interest in your film collection. On October 16, 2026, security researcher Zach Main published technical details and proof-of-concept (PoC) code for a vulnerability chain dubbed Plex2Shell. Within a day, researchers had observed attackers using the exploit against an internet-facing honeypot, deploying cryptocurrency-mining malware and proxy software. The incident is a reminder of how quickly a public exploit can be weaponized by threat actors. The chain combines four vulnerabilities in Plex Media Server: CVE-2026-96652, CVE-2026-96654, CVE-2026-96655, and CVE-2026-96656. Together, they can allow attackers to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable servers without valid credentials, provided the required conditions are met. The code runs with the privileges of the Plex service, giving attackers an opportunity to install additional software and abuse the host. The technical details are available in Main’s original analysis, Plex2Shell. Plex had been notified of the vulnerabilities on July 27 and acknowledged the report on August 4, awarding a bug bounty. The company released fixes in September, before the exploit code became public. The loader does not check the library’s name, executable permissions, digital signature, or symbols. As a result, the library’s ELF constructor can run with the same privileges as the Plex service. “It doesn’t check for a lib prefix, doesn’t require the execute bit, doesn’t verify any signature, and doesn’t look for any specific symbol.” reads the report published by zmain.com. “When dlopen loads a shared object, it runs the ELF’s DT_INIT_ARRAY (constructor functions) before doing any symbol resolution. A .so that only has a constructor and no exported symbols will still execute its code on load. We then trigger a second transcode. The codec directory gets re-enumerated, the .so we wrote in Stage 4 gets loaded, and the constructor runs as uid=1000(plex).” That detail matters because the final stage can exploit how Plex loads shared libraries. The chain uses a setting related to transcoding to influence execution, allowing a specially crafted library to run when Plex loads it. The result can be code execution under the service account, without requiring the attacker to obtain an interactive login first. QNAP urges users to update Plex Media Server immediately, users should go to App Center, open My Apps and update Plex Media Server to version 1.43.3 or later. They should then check in Plex Web, under Settings and General, that the installed version is 1.43.3.10861 or later. QNAP will release further updates after verifying them, but users should not wait. If Plex was reachable from the internet while running version 1.43.2 or earlier, users should treat the NAS as potentially compromised. This may apply if Plex Remote Access was enabled, port 32400 was forwarded, or the port was opened automatically through UPnP or router settings. Updating alone will not remove anything an attacker may have installed. In those cases, users should follow QNAP’s FAQ to perform a clean reinstall, check for signs of compromise and reset both their Plex and NAS credentials. The company also advises disabling Plex Remote Access if it is not needed and avoiding port forwarding for port 32400. Users who need remote access should use a VPN instead. QNAP also recommends keeping QTS or QuTS hero and all installed apps up to date. Step-by-step instructions are available in the Plex2Shell: Check and Remediation FAQ for QNAP NAS Users. CISA added Plex2Shell flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on October 20, 2026, urging federal agencies to addresse them by October 23, 2026. Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, QNAP)
The US Department of the Treasury has cut off the MEXC Global crypto exchange from the US financial system over sanctions evasion and links with cybercrime gangs. Founded in 2018, the Seychelles-based MEXC is one of the world's largest crypto exchanges, giving more than 40 million users from more than 170 countries access to 3,000 cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets. According to a Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) order, MEXC has allowed illicit transactions of at least $16 billion linked to cybercrime operations and Iranian, North Korean, and Russian sanctions evasion between May 2021 and May 2026. The Treasury Department said that, as recently as June 2026, MEXC was still processing transactions with sanctioned Russian entities Garantex and Grinex, and it also facilitated or processed at least $226 million in transactions benefiting or connected to the Russia-based, OFAC-sanctioned A7 sanctions evasion network.
Ukrainian law enforcement arrested four suspects in a case involving the theft of more than €4.3 million using a network of cryptocurrency investment scam call centers. In these fraud schemes (also known as romance baiting or pig butchering scams), criminals lure targets through social media, dating sites, and messaging apps into fake investment schemes, stealing their money instead of investing the funds as promised. The investigation involved Ukraine's Cyber Police Department, the Main Investigation Department of the National Police of Ukraine, and German law enforcement authorities. According to Ukraine's Cyber Police, the suspects used phone calls and messaging apps to build victims' trust through social engineering and trick them into investing in cryptocurrency, shares, and other financial instruments through fraudulent online trading platforms.
Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock (LockA locked padlock) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Share: Opens in a new window Opens in a new window Opens in a new window Press Release CISA Announces Enhanced Reporting Form for Cyber Incidents New questionnaire captures critical data and information that improves the agency’s ability to assess incidents, identify trends and prioritize response actions Released November 09, 2026 Related topics: Cyber Threats and Response , Incident Response WASHINGTON – Today, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) unveiled the updated cyber incident reporting form, an enhanced web-enabled questionnaire available on CISA’s Incident Reporting Portal for reporting cyber incidents. By improving data quality, the more robust form strengthens the effectiveness and efficiency of national cyber defense. For instance, the new form will help CISA correlate related cyber threat activity to identify a larger trend from what otherwise would appear as independent incidents.
US agencies warn attackers are going after industrial refrigeration controllers. The fixes are basic, and most start with getting them off the internet. CISA, the FBI, HHS, USDA and the Department of Transportation published a joint advisory on attacks against industrial refrigeration controllers and cold chain monitoring systems. The activity is global. Healthcare, chemical, food and transport companies use these systems to watch temperatures, keep logs, run defrost cycles and save energy, including in refrigerated trucks. “The authoring organizations are aware of malicious cyber actors targeting electronic temperature controllers and commercial refrigeration controllers in retail grocery and cold storage facilities.” reads the advisory published by CISA. “The actors may exploit vulnerabilities or weaknesses in unpatched or internet-accessible controllers to remotely alter settings and force units into continuous heating and defrost cycles, which can cause widespread inventory loss and equipment hazards.” The targets are electronic temperature controllers and commercial refrigeration controllers used in grocery stores and cold-storage sites. Attackers may exploit flaws in unpatched or internet-accessible controllers to change settings remotely and force units into continuous heating and defrost cycles. In plain terms, someone could cook your freezer from the other side of the world. The agencies identify three ways in: bypassing authentication, injecting arbitrary code, and exploiting weak configurations. Once inside, an attacker can change temperatures, which can shorten equipment life, create a fire hazard and destroy stock. Spoiled products that reach consumers can also create a safety risk. “The actors may exploit vulnerabilities or weaknesses in unpatched or internet-accessible controllers to remotely alter settings and force units into continuous heating and defrost cycles, which can cause widespread inventory loss and equipment hazards.” continues the adviosry. An attacker can also hide the damage. Operators lose sight of current temperatures, and that’s a bad moment to learn a cold room has been warm for hours. CISA’s Chris Butera adds that every organization that depends on these systems should assume it’s a target. The advice follows the Cross-Sector Cybersecurity Performance Goals from CISA and NIST, a minimum set of practices for any organization. Start with exposure. Keep controller panels off the internet, and if you need remote access, put an up-to-date firewall or similar gateway in front of it. Then separate industrial equipment from the office network with its own virtual network. Next, fix the basics. Change default passwords, use strong ones, and add phishing-resistant multifactor authentication where you can. Update firmware, and retire or replace devices the maker no longer supports. Allow only trusted devices and IP addresses to change system settings. Keep tested backups in a separate location, disconnected from the network. Enable logging and regularly check the logs. If devices do not record activity, monitor the network traffic between them. U.S. organizations should report suspicious activity to CISA’s 24/7 operations center or the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. Healthcare organizations can also contact HHS. Reports should include the date, time and location of the incident, a description of the activity, the number of people affected, the equipment involved, and a contact person within the organization. One control gets forgotten more than the rest. A controller shouldn’t be able to push a freezer past what’s safe, whoever is giving the orders. “The authoring organizations strongly urge industrial refrigeration and cold chain monitoring system owners and operators to secure remote access to their OT systems.” concludes the report. “To strengthen system security, owners and operators should review the following resources and implement recommended mitigations: United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre and Partners: Secure Connectivity Principles for OT“ CISA: Primary Mitigations to Reduce Cyber Threats to Operational Technology CISA: Defend the Edge: The Critical Importance of Edge Device Security CISA: Internet Exposure Reduction Guidance Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, newsletter)
The BBC plans to use emergency FM radio to keep the UK informed during prolonged blackouts, with a self-sufficient studio ready for 72 hours. If electricity fails across the UK for days, the BBC says it has a plan to keep people informed. David Sillito, the BBC’s media and arts correspondent, explained the strategy in a BBC News report, starting with the 2015 Lancaster floods and ending with a simple lesson: when digital infrastructure fails, FM radio may be the most reliable way to reach the public. On December 5, 2015, the River Lune flooded Lancaster, cutting electricity to 61,500 people. Roger Kemp, an engineering professor at Lancaster University specializing in safety and electrical systems, was watching television when the power went out. The following day, he described the scene to the BBC as almost resembling a zombie movie, with residents searching for phone reception and queuing at the only working telephone box. Homes lost heating and lighting, while some water supplies stopped because their pumps depended on electricity. Railway stations, petrol stations and shops closed, cash machines stopped working, and traffic lights failed. Only two communication systems remained operational: copper landlines and FM radio. Local station The Bay continued broadcasting using an emergency generator and a single landline. Kemp’s subsequent report highlighted the irony: a society increasingly dependent on digital infrastructure had relied on technologies dating back decades to receive essential information. The incident illustrated the risk of a wider catastrophe known as a Black Sky event, in which electricity, water, shops and communications fail simultaneously. At a recent UK resilience summit, discussions focused on maintaining essential services for at least 72 hours. One expression often heard in civil contingency circles, “nine meals from anarchy”, captures the concern that three days without food could turn an emergency into widespread disorder. “We are nine meals from anarchy” is a phrase often heard in the civil contingency world. A brutal reminder of the fear that three days without food would be enough to turn a crisis into chaos. If a Black Sky event takes out electricity, water, shops and communications, there is a good reason the government wants us to have our own supplies.” BBC states. “In a major emergency, we are being told to hunker down and turn on an FM radio, as thousands did in Lancaster. This is why the BBC has its own Black Sky plan.” The government’s Be Ready campaign warns that severe weather and cyberattacks could disrupt essential services, although it says there is no specific threat to the electricity grid. According to government advice reported by the Express, households should maintain at least three days of food and drinking water and keep a battery-powered FM radio. Sillito also recommends a hand-cranked radio that can generate its own power. The BBC’s contingency plan revolves around precisely this technology. Around 100 people would operate a dedicated emergency radio studio, equipped with secure communications independent of the internet, alongside enough fuel, water and food to survive at least three days without resupply. Reports published by French outlet Telesatellite and Open magazine on November 7 describe a self-contained studio, generators powering transmission facilities and FM radio as the fallback communication channel. Only a small number of BBC staff know the complete details. The studio would broadcast pre-prepared government announcements, with scripts already published online. These include practical instructions on daily water consumption and disposing of toilet waste when flushing is impossible. Additional reporting would come from satellite vehicles and journalists stationed at emergency centres across the UK. Transmission towers, disconnected from the internet, would use diesel generators and storage tanks ranging from 5 to 40,000 litres, providing approximately three days of power. Satellite phones would support communications between teams, with agreed meeting points and procedures if those systems also failed. FM radio remains central because it can reach almost everywhere, even during a major blackout or disruptive cyberattack. The BBC’s planning assumptions have evolved. An insider told Sillito that the original scenario considered outages lasting five to seven days, while the latest advice from the National Energy System Operator suggests electricity could return within two to three days. The corporation’s contingency arrangements have surfaced before. In October 2022, media reports described leaked draft scripts for a national blackout, including half-hourly Radio 4 updates from an emergency broadcasting centre at an undisclosed rural location. There is, however, a discrepancy in the Express report, which claims that only around 100 people worldwide know the full details. The BBC says approximately 100 people would operate the emergency studio, while only a small number have access to the complete plan. Concerns about grid resilience are not new, but the massive blackout affecting Spain, Portugal and south-western France in April 2025 renewed attention to the issue. Lord Harris, chair of the National Preparedness Commission, argues that the consequences extend well beyond losing electricity. Water supplies could stop because pumping stations need power, while sewage systems could become blocked when water can no longer circulate. Governments across Europe increasingly advise citizens to maintain emergency supplies, and Harris believes the UK has been slow to prepare its population. Some initiatives are already underway. ARIA, the government’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency, is investing £70 million in high-altitude aircraft designed to provide at least a week of emergency mobile and internet connectivity over the UK. Programme director Rico Chandra has warned that satellites alone have limitations when terrestrial networks fail. Harris argues that decades of efficiency-driven decisions have gradually removed essential redundancies. One example is the migration of emergency services from dedicated radio systems to mobile network technology, potentially exposing their communications to the same outages affecting the public. The government maintains that the transition to 4G and 5G provides reliable and resilient communications. “The UK has one of the most resilient electricity systems in the world, and there has never been a complete outage in the grid’s 75-year history.” The Cabinet Office states describing the UK electricity system. Government efforts to improve resilience predate the current debate. In May 2024, then deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden launched the previous Conservative government’s disaster preparedness initiative. During his investigation, Sillito also reconsidered the BBC’s isolated transmission infrastructure. What initially appeared outdated became a strength: independence from the internet could help keep broadcasting alive when digital networks collapse. Yet the UK is preparing to switch off its copper landline network on January 31, 2027, while the future of FM radio is also under review. The government’s position is that copper landlines, although useful during power cuts, have become unreliable and increasingly difficult to maintain. Kemp is less convinced that the country is moving in the right direction. Asked whether his report had improved national preparedness for a Black Sky event, he argued that the planned landline shutdown showed little consideration for how people would communicate during a prolonged power failure. Sillito experienced a smaller reminder while preparing his report: a power cut in his own street, leaking torch batteries, missing candles and an emergency radio he could not find. His conclus: “If anything, we’ve gone backwards,” he said. “Switching off the public switch telephone network, I think shows that there has been really no thought at all about how you communicate when you’ve no longer got power.” Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, BBC)
A system doesn't always need a complicated bug to let someone in. Sometimes, a blank password is enough. That's one of the bigger stories this week. And it gets worse when the tools meant to keep systems updated or running safely become part of the attack. Elsewhere, attackers are hiding inside normal web traffic, stealing credentials from network devices, and finding new uses for exposed
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added a high-severity vulnerability impacting SonicWall SonicOS to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, following reports that it said may have been exploited in real-world attacks. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-19868 (CVSS score: 7.1 / 7.5), has been described as an authentication reinforcement
Security Affairs AI-CYBERSECURITY newsletter includes a collection of the best articles and research on AI in the international landscape Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing cybersecurity, reshaping both the techniques used by attackers and the tools available to defenders. AI agents can automate tasks, analyze large amounts of data, discover vulnerabilities and accelerate offensive operations. At the same time, AI is creating new capabilities for threat detection, incident analysis and response. Security Affairs’ new newsletter follows this evolution, covering every week the latest threats, attacks, vulnerabilities and developments at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity. ‘It’s 100 percent a national security threat’: Accenture contractor connected an AI agent to the Pentagon’s secure network, and then sent data to a high-risk website Security notice — malicious version of Anthropic.claude-code (2.1.312 and 2.1.313) identified in the Cursor VS Code Extension Marketplace UK and Germany to jointly develop military AI in 2027 Appraisal by AI: Model-driven victim prioritization in the VOLTA infostealer AI policy wonks declare ‘sovereign agents’ a threat to civilization Progress on provable inference for large language models The Rise of LLMJacking: How Threat Actors Monetize Compromised Cloud and Model Resources “Black October” for AI Developer Platforms ARTEX Exposed: Mapping the Infrastructure Behind the South Korean Bank Breaches A thousand fewer paths to root Securing Muse: More Than $1 Million in Bug Bounties Paid Out Free the Model, Sell the Gateway: Prompt Adware hidden in Jailbreak Bundles WorkOS October 30th, 2026 Data Security Incident Covert underperformance on safety research tasks GPT‑6 Cyber: Advancing the frontier of aligned cybersecurity agents ThisBash Escape: Claude Dispatch Flaw Enables Browser Extensions RCE on the OS Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon Pierluigi Paganini (SecurityAffairs – hacking, newsletter)
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