An ICA supermarket in southern Sweden says attackers hacked its refrigerators and freezers, setting their temperature to 50°C. The store’s report is part of a wider series of overnight refrigeration problems across at least seven European countries, just weeks after hackers disrupted hundreds of supermarkets in France.
According to The Guardian, supermarket chains reported unexpected nighttime temperature rises in refrigerators and freezers at numerous stores. Reports emerged on Monday from Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden. Several companies confirmed they had suffered cyberattacks, though not every reported malfunction has been confirmed as an attack.
Swedish chain Coop said six of its stores had been targeted. A separate store in Stockholm reported a cyberattack at 2 a.m. that ruined both its stored food and the refrigeration equipment itself.
In the Netherlands, attackers targeted refrigeration and freezer systems at at least 17 stores, most of them smaller shops. In Finland, Kesko stores are investigating similar malfunctions.
The reports closely resemble the October cyberattacks in France. In those incidents, attackers were estimated to have remotely manipulated refrigeration systems at nearly 700 supermarkets, changing settings on thousands of freezers, refrigerators and refrigerated display counters. At some locations, equipment temperatures climbed from minus 27°C to above 50°C.
The French attacks went beyond changing thermostats. Hackers also disabled alarm systems and extended defrost cycles. The risk isn’t just digital: tampering with refrigeration controls can disrupt the conditions that keep food safe, while disabling alarms can leave stores without a warning that something is wrong.
As a result, French stores had to throw away huge quantities of meat, dairy products and frozen food. Individual shops lost amounts ranging from tens of thousands of euros to more than €130,000, while total damage may have reached tens of millions of euros. French authorities opened a formal investigation.
The attackers primarily targeted control systems made by Danish company Danfoss. But the French cybersecurity agency later determined that equipment from two other manufacturers was also affected, so the earlier incidents weren’t confined to one supplier’s systems.
