EU cyber agency warns hackers could target routers and home appliances next

A warning from Brussels

Juhan Lepassaar, executive director of the EU cybersecurity agency Enisa, said on Tuesday, 10 November, that the next targets of hacking campaigns could be inside people's homes. Speaking to AFP, he pointed to recent attacks on industrial refrigerators in supermarkets and warned that routers and household appliances could follow. The same day he presented Enisa's 2026 report on EU cybersecurity to the European Parliament. The report starts from the positive side: most member states have strengthened their defences, yet the Union remains exposed.

In an interview in Brussels, Lepassaar put the point bluntly:

“Security should not and cannot be an afterthought. Today it was the refrigerators, tomorrow it could be the routers, the day after it could be household appliances and so on.”

A stronger but uneven index

The Enisa EU Cybersecurity Index, developed in line with the NIS2 directive, gives the Union an average score of 71.53 points out of 100 for 2026. Most member states have reached a mature or higher level of cybersecurity posture, and two are already at a more advanced stage. The strongest results are in supply-chain management for essential and important entities (89.91 points) and in research and development (79.24 points). The weakest spots are education, at 73.59 points for higher education but 55.44 points for primary and secondary schooling, and incident-response teams, at 54.76 points, where differences between the 27 states persist.

Supply chain management89.91

Research and development79.24

Higher education73.59

Primary and secondary education55.44

Incident response teams54.76

Supply chain management

89.91 points (0-100)

Research and development

79.24 points (0-100)

Higher education

73.59 points (0-100)

Primary and secondary education

55.44 points (0-100)

Incident response teams

54.76 points (0-100)

Data from the article text

Threats move faster as AI widens the gap

The report describes threats as significant and changing faster than response capacity. Ideology remains the main driver of cyber incidents, geopolitical tensions continue to shape hostile operations, and profit-driven activity keeps a large impact. Hacktivists still dominate the overall volume of attacks. Artificial intelligence adds pressure on both sides: advanced models such as Mythos 5 can find and exploit vulnerabilities faster, giving attackers an edge. Defenders, however, lack enough experts who can use these tools and understand their risks. Lepassaar called this a "double skills gap", noting that frontier AI speeds up attacks while defenders struggle to adapt.

The refrigerator attacks

France has attributed the wave of attacks on supermarket refrigerators in October to Iran. Lepassaar did not comment directly on that attribution. He said state-aligned actors from China, Iran, North Korea and Russia are known to target Europe, and that the recent incidents affecting refrigeration systems across the EU show gaps in operations and the need for faster information sharing.

Five priorities for the next phase

The report, drafted with the European Commission and the NIS Cooperation Group, sets five priorities: enforcing rules more effectively, improving operational capacity and crisis coordination, strengthening the resilience of critical infrastructure, managing risks and dependencies along supply chains across the EU, and investing in awareness and digital skills. Lepassaar framed the task as follows:

“We must consolidate progress and update our strategies to address an increasingly complex landscape.”

In critical infrastructure, 70% of organizations name regulatory compliance as the main driver of their cybersecurity investment. Enisa also reports uneven progress between sectors, whose operational realities are not uniform.