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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Heather Stewart

World leaders must wise up to threat of cyber-attacks or rogue fridges will be least of their worries

A woman walks past empty food refrigerators at a supermarket in Névez, France, on 12 October after a cyber-attack caused fridges to defrost
Hackers forced up the temperature of many French supermarket fridges to 50C, resulting in them having to be emptied and food thrown away. Photograph: Fred Tanneau/AFP/Getty Images

Rogue French fridges were an unlikely talking point for the world’s leading economists, central bankers and finance chiefs meeting in a sultry Bangkok last week – helping to underline the spiralling cost of cyber-attacks.

Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, seized on news that supermarket chains across France had to chuck out piles of spoiled food after hackers accessed their fridge controls and turned up the temperature to 50C.

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