Several supermarket chains across Europe are reporting technical incidents with their refrigerator systems, including rising temperatures, with companies blaming potential cyberattacks.
Incidents were reported in Belgium, Ireland, and Sweden, among other countries, on Nov. 2, following similar attacks that took place across France last month.
Irish food wholesaler Musgrave said a cyberincident affected refrigeration units in 13 of its SuperValu stores. It said it had to remove some chilled and frozen products from sale.
The Delhaize and Colruyt chains operating in Belgium and Luxembourg said cyberincidents had affected fridge and freezer systems in several stores. French multinational chain Carrefour also said 15 of its 700 stores in Belgium were affected.
Colruyt operates Spar stores in Belgium, and a spokesperson said on Nov. 2 that five Spar shops had their fridge systems attacked.
Stephan Moelans, CEO of refrigeration installer Sabcobel, which operates Delhaize’s systems, told the Belga News Agency that his company began sending technicians to address the problem at about 1 a.m. local time.
“Personally, I’ve been awake since 2 a.m.,” Moelans said. “We’ve been working all night and morning to disconnect the affected units from the network.”
He said that over the past few weeks, Sabcobel had worked to protect customers against this kind of vulnerability, but that fixes must go beyond software updates to units needing physical modification—a move, he said, many of his customers made after the French cyberattacks.
Sweden, Finland, Estonia Affected
ICA and Coop in Sweden were also affected.
The sales manager at one ICA franchise store in Stockholm told Reuters that the attack occurred at 2 a.m. local time but wasn’t discovered until hours later.
“There has been a cyberattack and all our freezers reached 50 degrees Celsius [122 degrees Fahrenheit],” Engla Ingwall said.
Ingwall said that everything had been destroyed.
An ICA spokesman said a limited number of its stores were affected.
John Billow, head of Sweden’s national cybersecurity center, said he was working on several cyberincidents affecting grocery stores across the country. The center said it could not speculate on who was behind the attacks.
Sweden’s neighbor, Finland, also reported attacks on cold storage units at supermarkets.
Juha Tretjakov from the Cyber Security Centre told Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat that his department has already received information from the field that “there have been a few hits and some minor damage has occurred.”
Nearby Estonia was also affected, with one Selver supermarket hit. The attack forced a freezer to increase its temperature to 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
Selver communications chief Mariann Jarvela confirmed the incident, according to Estonian public broadcaster ERR.
The incidents follow an October attack in France, in which hackers remotely took control of refrigeration systems in hundreds of supermarkets and independent stores across the country, forcing temperatures to rise.
Reuters contributed to this report.
