Second Wave of Suspected Cyberattacks Spoils Supermarket Freezer Stock Across Europe

Supermarket and grocery store refrigeration systems across Europe appear to have been hacked in the early hours of Monday, the second such wave in recent weeks. Attackers manipulated temperature controls and caused stock to spoil. A "limited number" of smaller stores in Sweden were affected, with more than 50 identified in Belgium and over a dozen others in Ireland, Estonia, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Retailers said their freezers had been remotely set to 50°C. One Swedish supermarket manager said staff could not adjust the temperatures and that everything was ruined.

The incident has been described as a cyberattack by retailers and equipment suppliers, but no law enforcement or government agency has named those responsible. No group has claimed responsibility, and it is not known whether the same perpetrators were behind both waves. A spokesperson for the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium said it may never be possible to identify them.

Three weeks earlier, a similar attack hit hundreds of supermarkets in France, where hackers compromised internet-exposed remote controllers for refrigeration systems. The Paris prosecutor's office said there were around 700 victims. France's cybersecurity agency said controllers from several different brands were targeted. Belgian installer Sabcobel said about 20 of the hundreds of units it manages were affected, and that fixing them required physical modifications, not just a software update.