Dozens of supermarkets across six European countries have been hit by a suspected cyber-attack affecting their refrigerators and freezers.
Refrigeration units warmed after their settings changed
Around forty Delhaize supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg were affected. Supermarket chains in Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg also said refrigerator and freezer temperatures rose overnight in dozens of stores. Sabcobel, a Belgian company that manufactures some of the affected refrigerators, said the units’ evaporators were switched to defrost mode, causing them to warm up.¹²
Stephan Moelans, Sabcobel’s CEO, told Belga the incident was a cyber-attack. Sabcobel worked all night and morning to disconnect the affected units from the network. Since the French attack in early October, the company had been working to protect customers’ fridges against the vulnerability.¹²
Belgian and Swedish stores reported losses and outages
A Delhaize branch in Hoeilaart, in Flanders, Belgium, lost €100,000 (£83,500) worth of produce. The branch manager said that estimate did not include further losses from closing the shop. Carrefour, a French-owned supermarket, said the incident affected fifteen of its Belgian stores. A Colruyt Group spokesperson said five shops had their fridge systems attacked; the group operates Spar stores in Belgium under a franchise system.¹²
Sabcobel worked all night and morning to disconnect the affected units from the network.
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Read More →Several ICA and Coop shops in Sweden were hit. An ICA spokesperson said the affected stores were a small number operating outside ICA’s central network. One ICA branch in Sjöbo, southern Sweden, wrote on social media that its refrigerators and freezers had been hacked overnight and set to 50 degrees. Seven of Sweden’s 800 Coop stores were affected. Coop said the situation was contained and under control.¹²
Incidents reached Ireland, the Netherlands and Estonia
In Ireland, thirteen SuperValu supermarkets were affected. A Musgrave Group spokesperson confirmed that a cyber incident hit the chain’s refrigeration systems, with the impact limited to a specific refrigerator model. In the Netherlands, a spokesperson for Danish manufacturer Danfoss said freezing and cooling systems at at least seventeen companies were attacked overnight. A Selver supermarket in Estonia was also affected.¹²
Ahold Delhaize reported a cybersecurity incident to police in the Netherlands the previous month. Company spokesperson Sarah De Meester said the chain had established that temperatures in its cooling systems had increased. The affected systems varied by location: the SuperValu impact was tied to a specific refrigerator model, while the Dutch incidents described by Danfoss involved freezing and cooling systems at multiple companies.¹²
A previous French attack also changed cooling settings
The current incident was believed to use the same method as an attack the previous month that hit hundreds of French supermarkets. In October, French police said hackers had seized control of cooling units at up to seven hundred supermarkets. Hackers remotely overrode settings on thousands of freezers, fridges and chiller cabinets, pushing temperatures from as low as -27C to well over 50C. Intermarché, Coopérative U, Carrefour, Leclerc and Monoprix were among the affected chains, and stores discarded fresh meat, dairy and frozen products.¹²
Local media reports put the food discarded in the current incident at millions of euros worth. In the French attack, many stores reported losses from tens of thousands of euros to more than €130,000 (£109,000); two stores in Alsace reported combined losses of €270,000. Most supermarket cold aisles connect to the internet for remote maintenance and alerts when systems fail. In that French attack, hackers pirated controllers mostly supplied by Danfoss. ANSSI later confirmed that supermarkets using controllers from two other companies were also targeted.¹²
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Read More →Sabcobel said the affected units needed physical modifications, not just software updates. The simplest solution was to manage fridges over a secure internet connection, and most of the company’s customers switched to one after the French attack. Belgium’s and Sweden’s national cyber-security agencies said they were monitoring the incident. These measures address both the units’ physical setup and the connection used to manage them.¹²
Ahold Delhaize reported a cybersecurity incident to police in the Netherlands the previous month.
Cold-chain security is a job skill
If you work in retail operations, logistics, or facilities management, the attack shows that internet-connected refrigeration is a real attack surface, not a niche concern. The affected units in Belgium and Sweden needed physical modifications, not just software updates, and most of Sabcobel's customers switched to secure internet connections after the French incident. That means employers now value people who can audit device networks, segment them, and manage physical fixes, not just IT staff who patch software.¹²
For pay and role decisions, ask whether your employer has a plan for securing industrial controllers like the Danfoss units targeted in France. The French attack hit up to 700 supermarkets and caused losses over €130,000 at many stores, so companies have a financial reason to hire or pay more for staff who can prevent or respond to these incidents. If you are choosing between roles, one with explicit responsibility for connected hardware security is more valuable than one where that duty is undefined.¹²
Sources
Written by Career Ahead AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify key facts. Report errors to support@careeraheadonline.com
