European supermarkets hit by new wave of cyberattacks on refrigeration systems
Major European retailers report widespread cyberattacks where hackers remotely disabled or overheated refrigeration units, leading to significant food loss.
Supermarket chains across Europe, including Ahold Delhaize, Carrefour, and ICA, experienced cyber incidents on Monday that compromised their refrigeration and freezer systems. The attacks resulted in temperature spikes, forcing retailers to discard perishable goods across multiple countries, including Belgium, Luxembourg, and Sweden.
This marks the second major coordinated campaign against retail cooling infrastructure in a month. In October, hundreds of supermarkets in France faced similar breaches, with some units reaching temperatures high enough to pose fire risks. Retailers have since moved to contain the damage and are investigating how attackers bypassed security protocols.
The repeated targeting of supermarket infrastructure has prompted concerns from European officials regarding the weaponization of food supply chains. While retailers report that systems are largely back online, the incidents highlight persistent vulnerabilities in the interconnected systems that manage essential retail operations.