{"id":3711,"date":"2026-11-03T11:03:48","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T06:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3711"},"modified":"2026-11-03T11:03:48","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T06:03:48","slug":"new-cyberattack-on-supermarket-fridges-sweeps-across-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3711","title":{"rendered":"New cyberattack on supermarket fridges sweeps across Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A hacking attack on European supermarkets spread across the continent on Monday, hitting fridges and \u200bfreezers from Sweden to Belgium and forcing stores to throw away food in an incident that echoed a similar attack in France last month.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The attack, which raised temperatures in refrigerator and \u200cfreezer units at dozens of stores, hit supermarket groups Ahold Delhaize and Colruyt, which operate in Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as Swedish grocers ICA and Coop. Furniture-to-meatballs retailer IKEA also saw at least one store affected.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything is destroyed,\u201d Engla Ingwall, sales manager at an ICA franchise store in Stockholm, told Reuters during a visit to the store on Monday, adding the attack occurred at 2am but was only noticed hours later.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been a cyberattack and all our freezers reached 50 degrees (Celsius).\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for privately held ICA said the company \u200bwas aware that a \u201climited number of stores were affected by an incident overnight, which impacted their refrigeration and freezer systems\u201d.<\/p>\n

The latest incidents follow an attack in France<\/a> last month when police said hackers seized control of \u200bcooling units at hundreds of supermarkets, causing fires and food losses. Ahold also reported a cybersecurity<\/a> incident to police last month.<\/p>\n

While no one has claimed responsibility for either attack, \u2060the incidents have heightened concerns among European authorities about hybrid threats to infrastructure amid growing security tensions since Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in sabotage or hybrid warfare operations.<\/p>\n

Reuters could not establish who was \u200bbehind Monday\u2019s attacks or whether they were linked to the incidents in France.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not known who is behind this attack, and it may never be determined,\u201d said Katrien Eggers, spokesperson for Belgium\u2019s Centre for Cybersecurity, adding she was concerned \u200babout the growing number of incidents, in part due to AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll IT systems are potentially vulnerable, and AI can now be used to successfully exploit these weaknesses \u2014 especially by sophisticated actors,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u2018Retail is an easy target\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

From refrigerators and heating systems to security cameras and alarms, an expanding range of devices once largely mechanical can now be monitored and controlled remotely, creating new opportunities for cybercriminals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At least some of the refrigerator units affected on Monday used temperature control technology from Danish firm Danfoss that was also targeted in the French \u200battack. The firm said it had been working with customers to implement fixes.<\/p>\n

The European Commission said the latest incidents highlighted how digital threats are becoming increasingly disruptive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine \u200bconsumers\u2019 confidence in it \u2013 a warning that we must take seriously,\u201d said EU commissioner for agriculture Christophe Hansen. \u201cThe repeated occurrence of these cyberattacks is deeply concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Colruyt Group, which operates Spar stores in Belgium under a franchise system, said five shops \u200chad their \u2060fridge systems attacked.<\/p>\n

In Ireland, wholesaler Musgrave said the incident affected systems in 13 of its SuperValu stores, forcing it to remove some chilled and frozen products from sale.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur monitoring systems alerted us to the issue, and we took immediate action,\u201d it said in a statement. \u201cOur investigation is ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom Hegel, a researcher at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, said such attacks were typically linked to extortion, political motives or nation-state operations, with the absence of financial demands in recent cases pointing instead to sabotage.<\/p>\n

\u201cRetail is an easy target because retail chains run enormous estates of refrigeration controllers, building management systems, door access panels and point-of-sale gear,\u201d he said, adding it was hard to trace hackers targeting such systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn attacker who logs into \u200ban exposed control panel leaves almost nothing behind \u2026 A teenager \u200band an intelligence service would look much the \u2060same from the defender\u2019s side.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>\u2018It\u2019s very scary\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Carrefour, which was badly hit in last month\u2019s French attack, said 15 of its 700 stores in Belgium were affected. IKEA said one store in Belgium had been impacted and that it could not rule out disruptions at other locations.<\/p>\n

Privately held Swedish grocery chain Coop said that 7 of its 800 stores were \u200baffected by a cyber incident involving unauthorised tampering with its refrigeration systems. It said Danfoss was among its suppliers.<\/p>\n

Luc De Laet, founder and owner of Belgian butchery \u200bchain De Laet & Van Haver, said \u2060he was woken at 3:30am by an employee telling him there was a problem.<\/p>\n

He rushed to his store south of Antwerp and found the fridges turned up as high as 18 C.<\/p>\n

He estimated the incident ruined about \u20ac15,000 ($16,800) worth of meat.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very scary. They are hacking the system that is doing the registration of the temperature, and they can program it at a distance,\u201d he told Reuters, adding that it was infuriating to throw away so much food.<\/p>\n

De Laet said he believed \u2060the hackers were \u200btrying to destabilise European economies. He had contacted police but did not know whether an investigation had been launched.<\/p>\n

\u201cI only have two words \u200bfor them: wake up, please, because something is going on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A hacking attack on European supermarkets spread across the continent on Monday, hitting fridges and \u200bfreezers from Sweden to Belgium and forcing stores to throw away food in an incident that echoed a similar attack in France last month. The attack, which raised temperatures in refrigerator and \u200cfreezer units at dozens of stores, hit supermarket groups Ahold Delhaize and Colruyt, which operate in Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as Swedish grocers ICA and Coop. Furniture-to-meatballs retailer IKEA also saw at least one store affected. \u201cEverything is destroyed,\u201d Engla Ingwall, sales…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}