Refrigerators and freezers at dozens of supermarkets in at least five European countries malfunctioned overnight into Monday, in what appears to have been a coordinated cyberattack.

In Belgium and Luxembourg, the Ahold Delhaize, Carrefour and Colruyt chains said the cooling systems in dozens of their branches suddenly warmed up during the night. In Sweden, the ICA and Coop chains reported temperature spikes in freezers at several locations, and staff had to discard food that had spoiled. Similar incidents were reported in Estonia and Ireland.

Every freezer at one ICA store in Stockholm was put out of action. According to the branch’s sales manager, the attack began at 2:00 AM, and employees only discovered it when they arrived at 5:30 AM. Store management said the attackers pushed the temperature inside the refrigerators and freezers up to 50 degrees Celsius.

Coop told Sweden’s Aftonbladet newspaper that six of its stores were hit.

In Belgium, Stefan Mullens, who heads the refrigeration company Sabcobel, which runs the cooling systems for Ahold Delhaize, said the attackers switched the units’ evaporators into defrost mode. Colruyt, which runs Spar supermarkets in Belgium as franchises, said five of its stores had their cooling systems attacked.

Monday’s incidents follow an unprecedented attack on the night of October 11-12, when hackers broke into the temperature-control software of more than 400 French supermarkets and heated freezers and cold rooms to at least 50 degrees. Tons of food had to be destroyed, losses were estimated in the tens of millions of euros, and fires broke out at some sites.

Sources familiar with the French incident said the hackers went after refrigeration controllers made by Danish manufacturer Danfoss. The company said the units that were hit “operated with outdated firmware.” It also said that in 2022, supermarkets in Russia and Israel running older versions of its controllers had been breached or targeted.

In the United States, refrigeration failures of a similar kind were reported at no fewer than six military commissaries starting August 26, among them the commissary at Fort Huachuca.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)