Cyberattacks hit supermarket fridges and freezers in Europe, Belgium launches investigation

A number of incidents have taken place affecting supermarkets in Belgium, Sweden, Netherlands, Estonia, Luxembourg, Finland and Ireland, with fridge and freezer temperatures turned up, spoiling food.

Dozens of supermarkets in Europe have reported temperatures of their refrigerators and fridges rising overnight, now widely believed to be caused by cyber attacks similar to the one that affected France several weeks ago.

Supermarket chains in Belgium, Sweden, Estonia, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Ireland have been affected.

The story began with Belgian media reporting on Monday that fridges were turned up to 17 degrees Celsius, forcing many stores to throw away food.

Belgium's Centre for Cybersecurity (CCB) told Belgian outlet Belga that it is aware of an incident targeting supermarket refrigeration systems.

CCB spokesperson Katrien Eggers told Euronews , "We are aware of an incident, but have no further information." There are no reports yet as to who was behind the attack... and it may never be possible to identify them."

Belgium's federal prosecutor's office have opened an investigation into the incident, according to a spokesperson.

Some 40 Delhaize Proxy supermarkets, 15 Carrefour Shop & Go stores, 15 Intermarché shops and five Spar Q8 service station locations have reportedly been impacted in Belgium, according to Belgian outlet Le Soir .

Butchery group De Laet en Van Haver also said that their fridges were affected. IKEA have also said their Bergen shop located at Mons was affected, bringing the total to 75 stores affected in Belgium.

"We have identified an IT incident affecting the refrigeration systems in several dozen stores. We immediately took the necessary measures to keep our stores operational," a spokesperson from Delhaize told Euronews .

Carrefour told Euronews this morning that "the impact at Carrefour is very limited: currently 15 of our 700 stores are affected, both in Flanders and Wallonia. Not a single hypermarket is among them."

"All stores remain open because it only concerns a few refrigeration units, mainly freezers. Quick action was taken so that all stores can stay open," they added.

Meanwhile later this morning Carrefour Belgium spokesman Mich Vergauwen said, "It's a cyberattack, there is no other reason," adding that the "impact is very limited".

It's believed the incident took place between Sunday night and Monday morning, skyrocketing refrigerator temperatures.

Stephan Moelans, CEO of refrigeration installer Sabcobel, which manages Delhaize's fridges and freeze systems, told the Belga news outlet that the Belgian attack involves exactly the same mechanism as the French cyberattack.

"Over the past few weeks, we've been working very hard to protect our customers' fridges against this vulnerability," Moelans said.

He said the incident happened when the units' evaporators were switched to defrost mode.

The refrigeration executive said a software update alone is not enough to address the vulnerability, with physical modifications required instead.

"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."

Sabcobel know of around twenty affected units, out of the hundreds it manages across Belgium.

Danfoss, the company that supplied the software for the refrigeration systems affected in both the latest incident and the one in France in October, said customers who had not updated their software were affected.

A spokesperson told VTM NIEUWS that "the company says that the vulnerability lies primarily in outdated software and that they had already urged customers to start using their new software".

Stores hit Europe wide

Problems reportedly also occurred at a number of stores of the Swedish supermarket chains ICA and Coop last night, with refrigerators and freezers turned up to 50 degrees Celsius.

A similar incident occurred in Estonian at one location of supermarket chain Selver, according to media reports.

13 SuperValu stores in Ireland were affected by a suspected cyber incident, according to a statement by owner Musgrave made to the Irish Times.

In the Netherlands, the freezing and cooling systems of at least seventeen companies were attacked last night, according to a spokesperson for supplier Danfoss. The identities of the companies were not disclosed.

Delhaize also suspended its ordering systems in Luxembourg as a precaution to prevent a similar incident.

Finnish media report that several K Group supermarkets have been affected. K Group is one of Finland's largest retail chains.

These reported incidents follow a similar attack in France just weeks ago, on 12 October, when hundreds of French supermarkets belonging to the Intermarché and Coopérative U chains fell victim to a cyberattack targeting their refrigeration systems.