Europe Hit by Another Wave of Suspected Grocery Store Freezer Hacks
Grocery stores in Sweden and Belgium have reported rising temperatures in some of their refrigeration systems, suspected to be the result of hacks, weeks after a cyberattack on fridges and freezers in France that forced supermarkets to throw away food.
“Unauthorized actors were able to access and tamper with the cooling systems at a small fraction of our stores,” a spokesperson at Swedish supermarket chain Coop confirmed to Business Insider.
They said that seven out of its more than 800 stores were affected overnight and into Monday.
“The situation is currently contained and under control,” they added.
Gustaf Nilsson, spokesperson for ICA Sverige, another Swedish grocery retailer, said that an overnight incident affected a “small number” of its stores.
“The incident impacted the stores’ refrigeration and freezer systems,” Nilsson said in an emailed statement. “ICA is currently supporting the affected stores in managing the situation.”
The Sjöbo branch of the retailer said on its Facebook page that its refrigerators and freezers were hacked overnight, with their temperatures set to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. It said that the store was closed in the morning before later reopening.
In Belgium, the retail company Ahold Delhaize said it was aware of an “IT incident affecting the refrigeration systems in a number of Delhaize stores.”
“Our teams are working hard to fully assess the situation,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We will share further information as soon as we are able to do so.”
Belgian news outlet RTL reported one Delhaize manager had to discard the contents of her fridges and freezers.
The incidents are strikingly similar to a massive cyberattack that affected refrigeration systems at hundreds of French supermarkets last month.
The director of one Intermarché store in Normandy, France, told Business Insider that its fridges and freezers were remotely turned up to temperatures of up to 122F, resulting in $112,000 worth of food being discarded.
And in August, freezers failed at multiple US military sites, spoiling food.
A spokesperson for the Army Criminal Investigation Division told The Telegraph last month that the agency was working with investigators to determine the full extent of the incident.
“Army CID is also working with DCIS and French law enforcement in understanding the refrigeration outages in Europe,” they added.
No connection has been established between the latest incident in Europe, the cyberattacks in France, and US military freezer failures.
This is a developing story. Come back for updates.
