Cyberattacks hit supermarket freezers in 10 European countries

Cyberattacks targeting supermarket refrigeration systems were reported Monday across at least 10 European countries, European Union officials said, warning of a deliberate attempt to disrupt the food supply chain.

Retailers in Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Germany and Sweden reported problems. In some stores, freezer temperatures rose as high as 50C (122F), forcing shops to discard food. No one has claimed responsibility.

The incidents follow a similar attack about three weeks earlier that disrupted as many as 700 grocery stores in France, with food losses estimated in the tens of millions of euros. Investigators and cybersecurity agencies said attackers appear to have exploited internet-exposed refrigeration management interfaces, including systems with unpatched firmware or weak credentials.

EU officials said the bloc is taking the incidents seriously. Belgium’s federal prosecutors opened an investigation, and Italy’s government said the impact there was currently very limited.

Source: BBC News, Reuters. Read the full report from BBC News on the European supermarket freezer cyberattacks.