Europeupdated 1h ago3 min read
Cyberattack Raises Supermarket Fridge Temperatures Across Europe, Spoiling Food
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Dozens of supermarkets across seven European countries experienced cyberattacks raising fridge/freezer temperatures, spoiling food. Temperatures reached around 50°C in stores, causing widespread food spoilage across multiple countries.
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Fridges run hot across Europe
Supermarket refrigerators and freezers across Europe were targeted by a cyberattack that raised the temperature of internet-linked units, destroying and damaging large quantities of food. On Monday, fridges and freezers at more than 100 shops in several European countries ran hot, and the attack spread across the continent. Delhaize said dozens of its shops in Belgium and Luxembourg were hit by an “IT incident,” while Carrefour said about 15 of its 700 Belgian locations were hit by refrigeration problems.
“There has been a cyberattack and all our freezers reached 50 degrees [Celsius].”
Engla Ingwall, sales manager at an ICA franchise store in Stockholm, told Reuters during a visit to the store on Monday that the attack occurred at 2 a.m., but was only noticed hours later, and she said, "There has been a cyberattack and all our freezers reached 50 degrees [Celsius]." Katrien Eggers, spokesperson for Belgium's Centre for Cybersecurity, said, "It is not known who is behind this attack, and it may never be determined," as Belgium authorities faced the latest wave of incidents.
Who hacked, and how
The attacks came as a reprise of incidents in France last month, when police said hackers seized control of cooling units at hundreds of supermarkets, causing fires and food losses. Awais Rashid, a professor of cybersecurity at the University of Bristol in the UK, told Al Jazeera that these systems were accessible on the Internet, saying, "this is not the case in these incidents and they are accessible on the Internet," and he added that there were known vulnerabilities in controllers. Nick Jackson, director of cyber-operations at the cybersecurity company Bitdefender, said companies might move slowly to install patches because it can take time to run, and he said, "they can take time to run, which leaves periods when machinery needs to be offline".
Rafe Pilling, senior director for threat intelligence at Sophos, said the two most plausible attribution scenarios were state-based signalling and demonstration of capability or a lone-wolf hacker, and he compared the hack to, "wearing rubber gloves and messing with the switches." The EU commissioner for agriculture and food, Christophe Hansen, said the attacks were a deliberate attempt to disrupt the bloc’s food supply and undermine consumer confidence, warning that while "food security is not currently at risk … the food waste and impact on businesses are real".
Food security stakes rise
European authorities treated the refrigerator failures as a threat to food supply chains, with the EU condemning what it said was “a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine consumers’ confidence in it.” The European Commission said the latest incidents highlight how digital threats are becoming increasingly disruptive, and Christophe Hansen said, "They are a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine consumers' confidence in it — a warning that we must take seriously." Belgian federal prosecutors announced an investigation into what happened after the outages affected stores on Monday, while the Italian government held emergency talks with heads of intelligence agencies on Tuesday.
In Sweden, Coop said cooling systems at seven of its 800 stores were affected, with disruptions ranging from complete shutdowns to partial operation, and in Ireland, Musgrave said a cyber-incident affected refrigeration systems in 13 of its SuperValu stores. The Guardian said no politically motivated “hacktivist” group had claimed responsibility and no ransomware gang exploited the vulnerability to demand the supermarkets pay, as the damage was already done when fridges overheat.