🔍 Read the full analysis: 110 °C And A Midnight Cyberattack On A Blood Bank's Plasma Freezers on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
France’s national blood service, the EFS, said a cybersecurity incident affecting a refrigeration contractor’s systems changed settings at cold rooms at three sites overnight from Nov. 1 to 2. Alarms and an on-call technician detected rising temperatures, and plasma was moved; the EFS reported no health impact or loss of blood products. A reported 110°C was a programmed setpoint, not a measured temperature.
France’s national blood service said a cybersecurity incident involving a refrigeration contractor altered the supervision and control systems for cold rooms at three EFS sites overnight from Nov. 1 to 2, prompting staff to move stored plasma. The Établissement français du sang (EFS) reported no health impact and no loss of blood products; the widely reported 110°C figure was a controller setting, not a recorded room temperature.
In a statement dated Nov. 3, the EFS said a contractor responsible for refrigeration equipment had been the victim of a cybersecurity incident. The affected installations supervised and controlled cold rooms at three of its sites, where temperature and defrost thresholds were raised to “very high temperatures.” The EFS did not identify the contractor or give a temperature figure in its statement.
The rooms contained frozen plasma for transfusions and plasma intended for fractionation, a process used to make medicines. The EFS said its monitoring and alarm systems detected the anomalies quickly. Equipment was brought under control or switched off, and the contents were moved to other installations as a precaution. The service said it had identified no health impact and reported no loss of blood products.
Le Canard enchaîné reported that the controls were changed to a 110°C setpoint and identified the contractor as Coolworld. That identification and temperature figure have been repeated by other outlets, but are not included in the EFS statement. Coolworld had not publicly commented in the source reporting. According to the EFS, technical teams were working with France’s national cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, and the health ministry, while temperature monitoring across EFS equipment was stepped up.
Infographic 01 · 110 °C, explained
A setting, not a temperature
Someone raised the targets of plasma cold rooms at France’s blood service to +110 °C. The rooms never got there. What mattered was the alarm.
Frozen plasma has to stay at or below this line. The danger was thawing, not boiling. A few degrees too warm can already mean discarding bags.
- +110 °CThe programmed setpointTyped into the controller (Canard). Never reached, never measured.
- ~+50 °CHottest reported in the supermarket waveDefrost heaters forced on, same night (AFP, ZDFheute)
- −25 °CThe line that mattersFrozen plasma is stored at −25 °C or colder (EDQM guide via ISBT)
- −30 °CNormal operation of the EFS cold roomsAs reported by Le Canard enchaîné
Why the alarm won
- DetectionEFS monitoring and alarms flagged the anomaly quickly (EFS)
- A person on callAn on-call technician saw the temperature rise in the night (Canard)
- A plan BThe plasma was moved to other installations as a precaution (EFS)
Sources: EFS communiqué, 3 Nov 2026, via franceinfo · Le Canard enchaîné, as reported by Solutions Numériques · ISBT, citing the EDQM Guide · AFP via Al Jazeera, 4 Nov · ZDFheute, 3 Nov. The 110 °C and −30 °C figures come only from Le Canard enchaîné; the EFS gives no number.
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Why Plasma Temperature Controls Matter
Plasma must remain frozen to stay within the storage conditions required for its use. European guidance summarized by the International Society of Blood Transfusion sets a storage temperature of −25°C or colder for fresh frozen plasma. The reported cold rooms normally operated at about −30°C, so an unauthorized change to their control settings posed a risk if it caused the contents to warm beyond safe limits.
The incident’s reported outcome was limited: the EFS said alarms and human oversight detected the rise, staff moved the products, and no loss or health impact was identified. That does not establish how close any plasma came to an unacceptable temperature; the available account does not provide a complete temperature trace. The episode shows why systems supporting health supplies need monitoring and response measures that can identify problems quickly, including when remote controls are compromised.
For hospitals and patients, the immediate reassurance is the EFS’s report that no products were lost. The wider concern is operational: plasma is used in transfusions and in medicines, and cold-chain disruption can put stored supplies at risk even without a direct attack on the blood service itself.
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The Reported 110°C Setting
The 110°C figure has circulated as shorthand for what happened, but it describes a programmed target, not a measured temperature. The EFS’s public statement only says that temperature and defrost thresholds were raised to very high levels. The specific figure comes from Le Canard enchaîné’s reporting, not the EFS communiqué.
A controller setpoint does not show how hot a room or its contents became. The source material reports no measurement approaching 110°C. It says the practical danger was thawing: plasma needs to remain at or below the specified frozen-storage threshold. Without a published temperature record, the actual maximum temperature of the affected rooms and the plasma is not established.
The incident occurred on the same night as a second wave of attacks affecting supermarket refrigeration in multiple European countries, according to the supplied reporting. No authority cited in that material has linked the supermarket incidents to the EFS event. Two groups describing themselves as pro-Russian claimed the supermarket attacks in video posts, but those claims were unverified and the posts were later deleted. No government attribution was reported.
“The EFS monitoring and alarm systems made it possible to identify these anomalies quickly.”
— Établissement français du sang, statement dated Nov. 3
Temperature Records and Attribution
The EFS has not publicly named the refrigeration contractor or specified the altered temperature settings in its statement. The contractor’s identification as Coolworld and the 110°C setpoint come from Le Canard enchaîné’s reporting; Coolworld had not publicly commented in the material available here. The EFS said it was not directly targeted, according to the supplied account.
The available information does not show the highest temperature reached in each room, how long any temperature rise lasted, or whether plasma itself warmed above its required storage range. No loss was reported by the EFS, but a full technical account of the incident and the method used to access the remote supervision system has not been made public. The relationship, if any, between this incident and the supermarket refrigeration attacks also remains unestablished.
EFS Review and Monitoring
The EFS said its technical teams were working with ANSSI and the health ministry, and that it had increased temperature monitoring across its equipment. The next public details to watch for are whether the service or authorities disclose the contractor, how the remote access was compromised, and what technical or security changes follow.
Further information about temperature records could clarify the actual risk to the stored plasma, beyond the programmed setpoint reported by the press. Until then, the confirmed public account remains that alarms detected the problem, products were moved as a precaution, and the EFS reported no health impact or product loss.
Key Questions
Did the plasma reach 110°C?
No such measured temperature has been reported. The 110°C figure was described as a controller setpoint; the available reporting does not give the rooms’ maximum measured temperature.
Was any plasma lost or used after being compromised?
The EFS reported no loss of blood products and said plasma was moved to other installations as a precaution. The public account does not include detailed temperature records for each room or product.
How did staff detect the incident?
The EFS said its monitoring and alarm systems identified the anomalies quickly. The supplied reporting also says an on-call technician noticed rising temperatures overnight.
Who was responsible for the cyber incident?
No perpetrator has been identified in the supplied reporting. Le Canard enchaîné named the refrigeration contractor as Coolworld, but that is not stated in the EFS communiqué, and no public attribution of the attack was reported.
Was the blood-bank incident linked to supermarket attacks?
Both occurred during the same night, according to the reporting, but no authority has linked them. Claims by groups about the supermarket attacks were unverified and do not establish responsibility for the EFS incident.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
