Cyberattack on French supermarket fridges spoils food, sparks fires
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An unprecedented cyberattack on refrigeration systems across hundreds of supermarkets in France drove temperatures in fridges and freezers up to 50 degrees Celsius destroying food supplies and triggering fires in several locations.
Top retail giants including Intermarche, Cooperative U, E Leclerc, and others confirmed the massive security breach on Monday.
Major retail chains reported extensive disruptions, as Intermarche and its Netto brand saw at least 300 stores targeted, while Cooperative U experienced attacks across more than 100 outlets, according to statements delivered to the AFP news agency.
Carrefour reported impacts at 80 supermarkets, Monoprix confirmed hits affecting around 5 percent of its roughly 490 locations, and E Leclerc said hackers targeted several of its facilities.
Addressing the widespread incident, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed that a large-scale attack targeted “connected refrigerators in several major food retailers across France,” resulting in extensive food losses and store fires.
In response to the crisis, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu directed France’s National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) to launch an immediate investigation, an official in his office informed the Reuters news agency.
The government source added that French authorities are coordinating with European counterparts regarding potential impacts in other nations, while simultaneously evaluating whether other French businesses remain at risk.
Although officials have not released an industry-wide loss figure, Intermarche CEO Thierry Cotillard informed BFM TV that the unprecedented attack would cause nationwide losses amounting to “tens of millions of euros nationwide in a single day”.
According to reports from BFM TV, cybercriminals “managed to remotely trigger the forced defrosting of the refrigeration systems in numerous stores,” causing the widespread “destruction of stocks of fresh and frozen products”.
Intermarche representatives told AFP that impacted supermarket branches must “throw away all of the products” among their fresh and frozen inventory.
Cooperative U Chief Executive Dominique Schelcher revealed that the cyberattack began disrupting refrigeration networks late Sunday night.
Writing on the social media platform X, Dominique Schelcher said, “Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is extremely serious and is unprecedented. It is unacceptable.”
He emphasized that technical teams are moving rapidly to restore standard operations and demanded a comprehensive inquiry to “shed full light on this attack”.
Standard commercial refrigeration setups in supermarket aisles rely on digital control panels that regulate storewide fridges and freezers over the internet, enabling third-party maintenance contractors to adjust settings remotely.
The official close to Lecornu noted that ANSSI pinpointed a system vulnerability within software distributed by the Danish manufacturer Danfoss. Responding to the findings, Danfoss acknowledged awareness of “incidents in France affecting a limited number of refrigeration management systems.”
Company representatives explained that affected units “were running outdated firmware” and reiterated that Danfoss has “long advised customers” to install regular updates and replace aging hardware.
The cyber disruption unfolded shortly after cybersecurity research firm Claroty published findings on 9 August detailing authentication bypass vulnerabilities within Danfoss software systems.
Following the breach, France’s retail federation (FCD) demanded “full transparency” from Danfoss, while noting that a portion of the affected supermarkets had already resumed normal business operations.
Meanwhile, Sekoia Threat Detection and Research Senior Cyberthreat Intelligence Analyst Felix Aime revealed to Reuters that the cyber incidents also impacted commercial facilities across Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany, and Belgium.
Offering technical perspective on the event, cybersecurity analyst Steven Lachance told Al Jazeera that while the attack was rare in its massive scale, it was not entirely unprecedented. He explained that whenever hackers discover a flaw in internet-connected equipment, they can log in remotely to manipulate system commands.
Steven Lachance warned, “We have connected infrastructure that is live on the internet, and that can be hacked. It’s a new reality,” calling the incident “a global wake-up call”. Urging swift policy action, he added, “We absolutely need national and international measures to prevent these attacks, because otherwise it’s just going to keep happening.”
He cautioned that although retailers suffered millions of euros in ruined inventory during this breach, future attacks could target critical sectors, noting, “It could target energy infrastructure or hospitals.”
Source: Al Jazeera (adapted)
