Hacked Fridge Controllers Spoil Food Across French Supermarkets

Supermarkets across France opened on Monday, October 12, to warm freezers and spoiled stock. Overnight, attackers took control of refrigeration controllers in hundreds of stores and forced them into defrost cycles. Les Mousquetaires, owner of Intermarché and Netto, said fridges and freezers heated to 50°C for around six hours. Affected stores had to throw out all fresh and frozen products. Prosecutors confirmed fires, retailers estimated losses in the tens of millions of euros, and Coopérative U's chief executive called the attack unprecedented and unacceptable.

Retailers framed the incident as a supplier compromise. Les Mousquetaires said the systems were under Danfoss's management, and E.Leclerc said one of its refrigeration equipment suppliers had been hit. Danfoss named two affected models, the AK-SM 800 (end of life since May 2021) and the AK-SC 355 (phased out in 2016). Neither receives security updates. Some units of the current AK-SM 800A were also affected, running outdated firmware. Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium were also affected.

The incident shows how operational technology (OT) risk can reach the food supply chain. Passive analysis of internet scan data shows thousands of the same management interfaces still reachable from the internet in France. The attack came during a week of active hacktivist pressure on French organisations, though no group has claimed responsibility.