Supermarket Freezers Fail Across Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg

Refrigeration Systems Fail Across Swedish, Belgian, and Luxembourg Supermarkets

Temperatures in refrigerators and freezers rose overnight across dozens of supermarket stores in Sweden, Belgium, and Luxembourg, prompting immediate fears of a cyber-attack. The incident mirrors an earlier large-scale intrusion in France that caused millions of euros in food losses. Sweden’s Coop chain stated that six of its stores were affected, while ICA reported a limited number of stores experienced disruptions to their refrigeration and freezer systems. In Belgium and Luxembourg, Dutch retailer Ahold Delhaize confirmed that an IT incident hit cooling units in dozens of supermarkets. Company spokesperson Sarah De Meester stated that temperatures in the cooling systems had increased and that an investigation is underway.

Technicians Disconnect Affected Grid Installations

According to Belgian publication Le Soir, multiple supermarkets and retail outlets sustained damage, encompassing five Spar locations, several Q8-affiliated Shop & Go convenience stores, and various compact Proxy Delhaize grocery shops. Stephan Moelans, the chief executive of Sabcobel, which specialises in refrigeration system installations, told the paper that technicians were mobilized at 1am. Crews spent all night and morning disconnecting the affected installations from the grid. Most supermarket cold aisles are linked to the web so that failure notifications and remote maintenance can take place.

French Supermarkets Face Prior Hacker Overrides

Law enforcement in France reported in October that cybercriminals took command of cooling apparatuses across as many as 700 supermarkets during a massive assault, resulting in massive destruction of frozen and chilled goods and highlighting the fragility of web-connected infrastructures. Unauthorized actors remotely altered the configurations on thousands of fridges, freezers, and chiller cabinets, driving temperatures up from as low as -27C to well above 50C. Affected French chains included Intermarché, Coopérative U, Carrefour, Leclerc and Monoprix. Stores discarded vast quantities of fresh meat, dairy and frozen products, suffering financial losses ranging from tens of thousands of euros to more than €130,000 (£109,000), with two stores in Alsace reporting a combined loss of €270,000.

During the French incident, hackers pirated controllers mostly supplied by the Danish company Danfoss. Attackers disabled alarm systems before adjusting the thermostats or extending the defrost programme by hours. Danfoss said it had identified security flaws last year and had “long recommended” customers install updates. The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened a formal investigatiion into the French attack, saying damage included “food losses and fires”, and the prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, instructed France’s national cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, to investigate. ANSSI subsequently confirmed that supermarkets using controllers from two other companies were also targeted in the attack.

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