Not surprised they would hack systems, surprised they would spend their efforts on shit like this that doesn't have any real impact
Okay, let me explain why this is wrong. This will be an imperfect example, but hopefully it gets the point across.
When you shut down the refrigerators and freezers of something like 700 stores, people notice. They go to get food that day, and there is nothing fresh. Nothing. Go to the next store, still no fresh or frozen food.
Was there a natural disaster? No. Was there an attack? Yes, but the attacker is unknown. But who was in charge? Who was supposed to prevent this? They remember.
It's getting colder outside in the North, fall is here. This is traditionally a time where a lot of people were, for thousands and thousands of years, stocking up food and doing final harvests to survive the long winter.
If suddenly hundreds of stores don't have fresh food across the country, that is a large impact. Not even just what happened, but what could happen. If it happened to these hundreds of stores, what about thousands? What about other types of stores? What about other types of attacks? And your brain starts thinking about the other possible type of things that might be able to be fucked with remotely. The fear sets in. People that are afraid make less rational decisions. Maybe they also decide the current people in political power aren't fit for task, because they can't keep them safe. Maybe this didn't happen under the other guys.
Meanwhile, millions of dollars of food was just wasted. Not only that, but it also has to be disposed of. Because it's such a large amount of food, it will take additional trips from the trash disposal service. They may even bring people in on overtime across the country. The people at the stores themselves will probably work extra hours, quickly trying to rotate the bad food out and hopefully (now if not soon) get the new food in. In addition, the food logistics network has to get additional shipments of food it wasn't expecting to transport to hundreds of stores. That's a lot of extra time on the road, a lot of extra wear on equipment. It also stresses the food supply and production itself.
So I don't know what "doesn't have any real impact" looks like to you, but to summarize, this is going to do millions of dollars of economic and political damage, and contributes to social upheaval. It probably cost next to nothing to actually attack.
(This is also right out of Russia's hybrid war playbook against Europe. Russia just sank a Bulgarian tanker btw: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmn06w5x9g25o )
millions of dollars of economic damage sure, it doesn't contribute to social upheaval. It's a one time pain in the ass, this seems pretty hysterical tbh
They are constantly running tons of attacks like this. This one you heard about because it hit grocery store systems, but the attacks big and small all over Europe right now are staggering. Physical and digital. Arson attacks on warehouses, drone attacks, gun dead drops in the German woods, etc etc etc.
Eventually people don't feel safe anymore. That's the goal.
You're looking at moving a single chess pawn like it's the entire game. No, it's just one move.
> It's a one time pain in the ass, this seems pretty hysterical tbh
You're not thinking about the second and third order effects enough, either.
How much labor is going to go into trying to patch these systems or redesign the physical or digital infra for them? For each store? How many other systems like this are online and just didn't get hit? Those will need to be patched and upgrades too, maybe taken offline. So if they normally monitor these remotely, now they have to add another system in place for vpn, increasing cost and time and complexity. Now EVERY vendor of similar systems is going to be looking at how to not end up on the news like this.
Now expand beyond fridgerators. Think about freezers, too. Water systems. Power distribution. Internet access. Payment systems. Government websites, etc. All of this stuff is under attack right now.