Dozens of supermarkets across seven European countries have been impacted by a cyber-attack affecting their refrigerators and freezers. Approximately 40 Delhaize supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg were hit, with a smaller number of shops affected in Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia, and Finland.
Sabcobel, a Belgian manufacturer of some of the affected refrigerators, stated that the units' evaporators were switched to defrost mode, causing them to warm up. This method is believed to be similar to an incident in October that affected hundreds of French supermarkets, where millions of euros worth of food was reportedly discarded.
Stephan Moelans, CEO of Sabcobel, told the Belga news agency that the incident was a cyber-attack and that the company had been working to disconnect affected units from the network. He noted that physical modifications, not just software updates, are needed to protect against this vulnerability, despite many customers switching to managing fridges over secure internet connections after the French attack.
The temperature of freezers in several shops across Europe reportedly rose to as high as 50C (122F). For example, an ICA branch in Sjöbo, Sweden, reported its freezers were set to 50 degrees after being hacked. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre is collaborating with international partners and industry to understand the incident, with no reported incidents in the UK.