Supermarket Freezers in Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg Hit by Suspected Cyberattack

Temperatures in refrigerators and freezers rose overnight in supermarkets in Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg, in what the companies involved describe as IT incidents and what some reports describe as a suspected cyberattack. The affected chains include Sweden's Coop and ICA, and the Dutch-based Ahold Delhaize group, which operates stores in Belgium and Luxembourg.

Coop said six of its stores had been affected. ICA said a limited number of its stores were hit by an incident affecting refrigeration and freezer systems. In Sjöbo, ICA Kvantum and ICA Maxi reported that their fridges and freezers had been hacked, and ICA Nära St Olof had a freezer set to 50 degrees. ICA Supermarket Baronen in Stockholm discarded all chilled and frozen goods after temperatures were raised. ICA press officer Gustaf Nilsson said the company is helping affected stores handle the incident.

In Belgium and Luxembourg, Ahold Delhaize said an IT incident had hit fridges and freezers in dozens of its supermarkets. Spokesperson Sarah De Meester said temperatures in the cooling systems had increased and that the incident was being investigated. The affected Belgian outlets include five Spar stores, several Shop & Go convenience stores attached to Q8 petrol stations, and smaller Proxy Delhaize minimarkets. Le Soir reporting, cited by Aftonbladet, put the number of food stores hit in Belgium at about 40. In several Belgian stores, temperatures rose suddenly to 15 degrees.

Stephan Moelans, chief executive of Sabcobel, said technicians were mobilised at 1am and spent the night disconnecting affected installations from the grid. Ahold Delhaize had also reported a cybersecurity incident to police in the Netherlands last month.

The overnight incidents follow a larger attack in France in October. French police said hackers had seized control of cooling units at up to 700 supermarkets. According to the same reporting, the hackers remotely overrode settings on thousands of freezers, fridges and chiller cabinets, moving temperatures from as low as -27C to well over 50C. Intermarché, Coopérative U, Carrefour, Leclerc and Monoprix were among the chains affected. Reuters reported that 150 Intermarché stores had been targeted.

Many French stores reported losses ranging from tens of thousands of euros to more than 130,000 euros. Two stores in Alsace reported a combined loss of 270,000 euros. The hackers mainly targeted controllers supplied by Danish company Danfoss. Danfoss said it had identified security flaws last year and had long recommended that customers install updates.

The Paris prosecutor's office has opened a formal investigation into the French attack, citing damage that includes food losses and fires. French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has instructed the national cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, to investigate. ANSSI has confirmed that supermarkets using controllers from two other companies were also targeted.

Aftonbladet reported that Coop had planned system upgrades on Wednesday in several stores in response to the freezer incidents in France. Reuters has also reported that several U.S. military bases were hit by suspected cyberattacks on freezers in late August. A suspected cyberattack on store cooling systems in Ireland is under investigation, according to RTE reporting cited by Aftonbladet.