Cyber Attack Sabotages Refrigeration Systems Of Supermarket Chains

The cyberattack on refrigeration units at Belgian supermarkets began around midnight on Sunday night, Stephan Moelans, CEO of refrigeration installer Sabcobel, told Belga. The company knows of around twenty affected units, out of the hundreds it manages across Belgium.

Fridges and freezers have been affected at Delhaize, Carrefour and Spar, among others. The attackers remotely switched the units' evaporators to defrost mode, causing the fridges to warm up. The mechanism is said to be exactly the same as in the large-scale cyberattack on hundreds of shops in France in early October.

"We began mobilising technicians at 1 am to get the situation under control," Moelans said. "Personally, I've been awake since 2 am. We've been working all night and morning to disconnect the affected units from the network." Some shops may nevertheless suffer losses and have to throw products away.

"Over the past few weeks, we've been working very hard to protect our customers' fridges against this vulnerability," Moelans said. According to him, a software update alone isn't enough: the units need physical modifications. "That requires investment. The simplest solution is to manage the fridges over a secure internet connection. Most of our customers switched to that after the attack in France."

Several supermarkets in Sweden also reported on Monday that a cyberattack had disrupted their refrigeration systems, the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reports.

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