Supermarket chains in Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg have reported that temperatures in refrigerators and freezers rose overnight, prompting fears of a cyber-attack similar to one that affected French retailers last month.
Swedish chain Coop said six stores were affected, while ICA confirmed that a limited number of its stores experienced an overnight incident involving refrigeration and freezer systems.
Ahold Delhaize said an IT incident affected cooling equipment in dozens of its supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg. Spokesperson Sarah De Meester said the company had confirmed that temperatures had increased and was investigating what happened.
Belgian newspaper Le Soir reported that dozens of shops were affected, including five Spar outlets, several Shop & Go convenience stores at Q8 service stations and a number of Proxy Delhaize minimarkets. Refrigeration specialist Sabcobel began mobilising technicians at 1am and disconnected affected installations from the electricity grid, according to its chief executive, Stephan Moelans.
The reports follow a large-scale attack in France, where police said hackers had taken control of cooling units at up to 700 supermarkets. The incident caused extensive losses of chilled and frozen food after remote changes pushed equipment temperatures from as low as -27C to above 50C.
Intermarché, Coopérative U, Carrefour, Leclerc and Monoprix were among the affected French chains. Individual stores reported losses ranging from tens of thousands of euros to more than €130,000, while two stores in Alsace reported combined losses of €270,000.
Most supermarket cold-storage systems are connected to the internet for remote maintenance and failure alerts. In the French case, attackers reportedly disabled alarms before changing thermostat settings or lengthening defrost cycles. Many of the targeted controllers were supplied by Danish company Danfoss, which said it had identified security flaws the previous year and had long recommended installing updates.
France’s Paris prosecutor’s office opened a formal investigation into the attack, citing food losses and fires. The country’s national cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, was also instructed to investigate and later confirmed that systems using controllers from two other companies had been targeted.
Sources: The Guardian Business.