Supermarket chains across Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Sweden experienced major disruptions when remote cooling systems were compromised. Hackers forced installations into defrost mode, spoiling vast quantities of perishable inventory and leaving store shelves bare. Technicians were forced to manually disconnect compromised equipment overnight to prevent further damage. The coordinated event mirrors an attack in France last month that caused tens of millions of euros in ruined stock.
Key points
Hackers targeted unpatched operational technology to deliberately disrupt retail food sup…: Hackers targeted unpatched operational technology to deliberately disrupt retail food supplies across multiple European nations.
Supermarket chains including Ahold Delhaize, Spar, ICA, and Coop suffered extensive food…: Supermarket chains including Ahold Delhaize, Spar, ICA, and Coop suffered extensive food losses that left store shelves empty.
European officials view the incidents as hybrid attacks intended to destabilize critical…: European officials view the incidents as hybrid attacks intended to destabilize critical infrastructure and weaken consumer confidence.
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Supermarket chains in at least seven European countries have said the temperatures of refrigerators and freezers in some of their shops soared overnight to as high as 50C (122F), echoing a cyber-attack last month that caused millions of euros of damage in France.
Retailers in Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden reported problems with their refrigeration systems on Monday, and several companies confirmed they had been hacked.
The EU food and agriculture commissioner, Christophe Hansen, said the repeated cyber-attacks were deeply concerning, calling them “a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine consumers’ confidence in it”.
The incidents follow an attack in France last month in which hackers seized control of cooling units in as many as 700 supermarkets, raising their temperatures as high as 50C (122F) and causing fires and food losses estimated in the tens of millions of euros.
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