Supermarket and grocery refrigerators across Europe appear to have been hacked in the early hours of Monday, the second such wave in recent weeks, The Record reports. Retailers said a “limited number” of smaller stores were hit in Sweden, more than 50 were identified in Belgium, and over a dozen others in Ireland, Estonia, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Retail companies and equipment suppliers have called it a cyberattack, but no law enforcement or government agency has named a perpetrator, and nobody has claimed it.
Retailers described a scenario like the French one, saying their freezers had been remotely set to 50°C. A Swedish store manager told broadcaster TV4 the staff could not change the temperatures and that “everything is ruined.” Stephan Moelans, CEO of refrigeration installer Sabcobel, told the Belga news agency the attack began around midnight on Sunday night and that the attackers switched evaporators into defrost mode; Belga lists Delhaize, Carrefour and Spar among the chains affected. Sabcobel knew of about 20 affected units out of the hundreds it manages in Belgium. Moelans said a software update alone is not enough: the units need physical modifications, and the simplest fix is managing the fridges over a secure internet connection, which most of his customers adopted after the French attack.
The earlier wave, covered in our post on the French supermarket attack, involved compromised internet-exposed remote controllers; the Paris prosecutor’s office told The Record there were around 700 victims. France’s ANSSI said then that controllers from several brands were attacked. For Monday’s incident, a contractor in Estonia said attackers accessed an older Danfoss system, and Dutch broadcaster NOS reported that Copeland equipment was also targeted in Belgium, per The Record. After the French attack both companies said the affected devices were mainly discontinued products that no longer receive security updates. Belgium’s Centre for Cybersecurity said it did not yet know whether AI was used, and called the rising number of incidents a concern.
How to check if you’re affected
Affected products reported so far are internet-reachable refrigeration remote controllers, including an older Danfoss system (Estonia) and Copeland equipment (Belgium) named in the press; after the French attack both vendors said the affected devices were mainly discontinued products without security updates, and ANSSI said several brands were hit. This matters mainly to store operators, franchisees and their refrigeration service providers, not shoppers.
Ask your service provider which controllers and models are installed, whether any management interface is reachable from the internet, and how remote access is secured. Belga’s reporting points to managing units over a secure connection rather than direct internet exposure. Sabcobel says some units need physical modifications, so a vendor firmware update may not be the whole answer. Shoppers have no check to perform.
Sources
- The Record: Second wave of suspected cyberattacks hits supermarket freezers across Europe
- Belga News Agency: Cyber attack sabotages refrigeration systems of supermarket chains
- TV4 (Swedish broadcaster), linked from The Record; page not read directly
- Danfoss newsletter on end-of-service policy, linked from The Record (returned HTTP 403 to automated requests; not read directly)