Update, Nov. 3: Supermarkets in 11 European countries have now reported refrigeration attacks, Belgian federal prosecutors have opened an investigation and Italy held emergency security talks, AFP reported Tuesday. Danfoss said affected Dutch systems still used a default password, The Primary Wire reported.
Cyberattacks on supermarket refrigeration hit chains in Belgium, Luxembourg and Sweden overnight Sunday, weeks after a similar attack on hundreds of French stores, Reuters reported Monday. The repeat shows the method works across borders and chains, putting the remote controls behind store cooling on the risk list for anyone who must keep goods cold.
What Happened
Ahold Delhaize and Colruyt said an overnight IT incident hit fridges and freezers in dozens of stores in Belgium and Luxembourg, according to Reuters. Citing the Belgian news agency Belga, Reuters reported that Stephan Moelans, chief executive of Sabcobel, the refrigeration company that operates Delhaize's systems, described a cyberattack that switched the units' evaporators, the parts that draw heat out of a cabinet, into defrost mode. Colruyt said fridge systems at five Spar shops it runs under franchise in Belgium were attacked.
The BBC reported that about 40 Delhaize stores and 15 Carrefour stores in Belgium were affected.
In Sweden, ICA and Coop reported similar temperature spikes. One ICA store said its fridges and freezers had been hacked and set to 50 C (122 F), Reuters reported. Coop told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that six stores were hit, Reuters reported; the BBC put it at seven of about 800. Kitman Coldtech, a refrigeration technology supplier, said an unnamed Estonian supermarket chain also had temperatures set to 50 C, Reuters reported.
In Ireland, Musgrave, which owns SuperValu, confirmed a "cyber incident" affecting its refrigeration and removed chilled and frozen food from 13 stores as a precaution, The Irish Times reported. Musgrave said the impact was limited to a "specific model" of refrigerator, which it did not name.
No group has claimed responsibility, and authorities have not said who is behind the incidents, Reuters reported.
Why It Matters
Store refrigeration runs on operational technology, networked controllers that set temperatures and defrost cycles, often managed remotely by outside service firms. John Billow, head of Sweden's national cybersecurity center, told Reuters the center was working on several incidents and had "identified that we have quite a lot of exposed operational technology devices in Sweden" that need updating or patching.
The damage is physical: discarded stock, closed stores and, in France, fires. U.S. grocers, food distributors, hospitals and cold-storage operators use similar controls. They should check which refrigeration and building controllers are reachable from the internet, which vendor accounts have remote access, whether default passwords or outdated firmware remain, and whether temperature alarms reach someone overnight.
The French Wave and the Pentagon Probe
In October, French police said hackers took control of cooling units at hundreds of supermarkets, causing fires and food losses, Reuters reported. The Primary Wire reported on it Oct. 12. Fortune reported Sunday that an alert from CERT-FR, France's government computer emergency response team, named Danfoss AK-SM and AK-SC controllers and Copeland and Dixell xweb units that were running outdated firmware and could be reached over the internet. No source has named the equipment involved in the new incidents.
Four officials told Reuters the Pentagon is treating August refrigeration failures at more than half a dozen U.S. military commissaries as a possible cyberattack, Fortune reported. U.S. officials are in contact with French authorities, and The Primary Wire reported on the probe last week. No link between the U.S. and European incidents has been established.
What to Watch
Watch whether investigators tie the new incidents to the French campaign or to specific controller models, whether U.S. agencies issue guidance for networked refrigeration, and what the Pentagon's investigators conclude about the commissary failures.
