Hot fridges, a fake nuclear alert and a $6bn heist: are we in the foothills of a hacking epidemic?

As AI exposes flaws in IT systems and geopolitics plays out on the cyber frontline, some experts say the events of recent weeks could soon be a common occurence

Alex Pearce was doing the morning rounds at his fruit and vegetable wholesale business in London on Monday last week when he noticed something odd.

The defrost light on refrigeration unit 2 was on, and the panel reading was 150C. Unit 4 was the same.

As he approached his biggest unit, its defrost light also blinked on.

It was at this point that Pearce thought: is this a cyber-attack? He walked over to the box connecting the units to the internet and yanked out the cable.