HOSPITALS face being plunged into darkness if the West doesn’t fix outdated security systems after a daunting week of cyber attack chaos.
is ramping up his shadow warfare against Europe – as fears mount Moscow was behind a wave of chaos at this week.
On Monday, – sending internal temperatures as high as 55C and spoiling millions of pounds worth of food.
The chaos led to every UK home being advised to stock up in case of a – with Brits told to prepare for a potential terrifying 72 hours of darkness .
Across the week, a series of , sparking a spate of emergency landings and fighter jet escorts.
It has not been confirmed who was behind the schemes, but speculation is growing .
Niklas Granholm, Deputy Director of Studies at FOI, the Swedish Defence Research Agency, told The Sun: “The overall picture points to an organised hybrid campaign – attacks on a broad spectrum of societal functions where the attacker is difficult or impossible to identify – by a state actor.”
This week’s widespread disruption has exposed the , experts say.
The National Cyber Security Centre confirmed on Tuesday Britain must prepare for hybrid warfare amid the sprawling fridge cyber attack that also hit UK meat suppliers.
could now look to put his foot on Europe’s neck by increasing his attacks on critical internet-based systems – some of which experts warn are especially vulnerable.
Heli Klaar, visiting distinguished fellow at the German Marshall Fund, a US think tank, highlighted the Internet of Things (IoT) as a weak spot in Europe.
The term refers to networks of physical everyday appliances that connect with other .
These include things like supermarket freezers, systems or even care equipment.
Klaar told The Sun: “Lots of medical devices are connected to the internet. We don’t want to see people start dying in hospitals because of overheating or pacemakers going crazy – that’s definitely a threat.”
She added: “There are so many devices which are already with a very low level of security. Every national cyber agency should really urgently look into those.”
Our most crucial government systems are much more robust and some are kept off the internet entirely – but IoT devices are still important and must be updated, she added.
Jamie MacColl, a cyber security researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, highlighted systems as another .
He told The Sun: “Electricity generation and distribution networks, things like solar inverters, aspects of kind of wind power generation.
“The nature of those systems means there’s huge amounts of internet connected sensors on them, which are remotely accessible.
“In theory, they possibly have been designed in a way that is not as secure as they could be.”
Klaar and MacColl said it was too early to point the finger at anyone for recent attacks.
But of his shadow warfare in recent months – stirring unrest across a range of different critical infrastructure targets.
Increasingly brazen has escalated to bring energy grids, undersea communication cables, and airports into the crosshairs.
The EU is quietly bracing for a – frantically drawing up plans to respond to a large-scale assault, reports say.
Moscow’s snowballing plots were most starkly highlighted by the Leipzig airport drone ordeal.
The was the opening salvo in a stepped-up campaign of shadow warfare against directly ordered by Putin, according to the Wall Street Journal .
Fears are mounting the Kremlin has the power to cut off the continent from key supplies such as water and electricity.
Last month, the UK urged every Brit to stock up to nine litres of bottled water and three days’ worth of food as part of new guidance to withstand a national emergency.
Phil Tonkin, former head of the UK’s National Grid, warned that Britain’s water infrastructure is susceptible to a cyber attack.
He told the i Paper: “As more systems become connected remotely, relying on a single perimeter to protect an entire network becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.
“Operators need to consider the possibility of a breach and ensure they have appropriate segmentation and monitoring within their operational networks.”
Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at Atlantic Council, said emergency measures like the one in Britain are already being taken across the continent.
She told The Sun: “There has been a known vulnerability for a long time- that’s why governments, such as Sweden, , and Poland have warned their citizens.
“That’s why they have all this preparedness now recently in the UK, telling people to store water – this is precisely why.”
Braw added: “It has always been the case that if you want to harm a country without invading it, harming or damaging national infrastructure is a very effective way to go.”
Granholm said there is a “broad scope of attacks” aiming to sow chaos in the West which have exposed how defenceless Europe is.
He added: “There are several areas where an attack could be serious; water, distribution, energy networks, transportation and not least logistics networks.
“We are all highly dependent on flows of all kinds of goods and information by sea, air and land. Attacks on financial data flows would also have serious effects.”
On Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, dozens of flights were hit by bomb threats, sparking a series of emergency landings in countries like Italy and Spain.
This week’s chaos also saw various different supermarket brands across the continent affected by hacks.
French chain Carrefour said 15 of its Belgian stores had been hit, while popular furniture brand Ikea also reported faults with its cooling systems.
In Sweden several ICA and Coop shops were hit.
Granholm said of the latest disruption: “The likely motive for is an attempt to weaken Europe’s support for Ukraine.
“It is not limited to the cyber domain but employs a broad array of methods, including physical sabotage, arson, kidnapping and murder.”
MacColl said it was definitely “too early to try and attribute it to a specific state”, but pointed out the glaring fact that there was no obvious financial motivation to the plot.
“There has been no ransom demand… it does seem logical that it’s either a state or a hacktivist group that is linked to a state like Russia or Iran,” he said.
He added Russian hackers ordered directly by Putin would theoretically be more than capable of carrying out much more devastating plots than the ones seen this week.
Klaar said a Russian cyber-attack on hospitals is unlikely, but it would bring Europe much closer to a conflict.
She said: “Hostile countries know that they shouldn’t cross the Rubicon by breaking international law and using cyber for deliberate loss of life.
“But once you do it, if somebody dies because of a cyber-attack in a hospital, then it’s a different ball game.”
On Tuesday, the UK’s top cyber chief Dr Richard Horne backed Government warnings for Brits to stockpile essentials, adding “it’s your life, choose wisely”.
A few weeks ago, up to as coolers were overridden and heated up to 50C in a similar hack.
Both cyber attacks have exploited outdated software in temperature control systems, setting them to “defrost mode” remotely.
