Cyberattacks Cripple European Supermarket Freezers
Dozens of stores in Sweden and Belgium hit by rising temperatures, mirroring earlier French incident.
Carla Rooney
Cyberattacks have caused freezer temperatures to rise in dozens of supermarkets across Sweden and Belgium.
Coop, a Swedish grocery retail group, confirmed six of its stores experienced disruptions. The French National Cybersecurity Agency investigates last month's incident in France, which impacted hundreds of supermarkets.
Most supermarket cold aisles connect to the internet for remote maintenance and alerts. This represents a potential vulnerability exploited in these attacks.
In the French attack, hackers pirated controllers primarily supplied by the Danish company Danfoss. Danfoss stated it identified security flaws last year and recommended customers install updates.
Swedish grocers ICA and Coop both reported temperature increases in their refrigeration systems. One Swedish store explicitly blamed a cyberattack for the temperature increases.
An ICA Baronen store in Stockholm claimed the attack occurred at 2 AM local time but went unnoticed until 5:30 AM. The temperature of refrigerators and freezers in one Swedish store had been set to 50 degrees Celsius.
In Belgium, approximately 40 Delhaize supermarkets and 15 Carrefour stores were affected. Five Colruyt Group shops also had their fridge systems attacked.
Stephan Moelans, CEO of Sabcobel, claimed the units' evaporators switched to defrost mode as part of a cyberattack. Ahold Delhaize reported a cybersecurity incident to police in October after detecting suspicious activity.
Thirteen SuperValu shops in Ireland have also been affected. The incident there is suspected to be a cyberattack.
The incidents in Sweden, Belgium, and Luxembourg are feared to be a cyberattack similar to the one in France.