Hackers raised the temperature of fridges and freezers at a whole lot of French supermarkets to as high as 50 levels Celsius (122 levels Fahrenheit) in a single day, inflicting fires and spoiling food.
The Paris prosecutor’s workplace said on Monday that a “large-scale” attack was “affecting connected refrigerators in several major food retailers across France,” main to food losses and fires.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has instructed France’s National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) to examine, a particular person in his workplace said.
An attack by hackers led to empty fresh-food fridges at supermarkets all through France on Monday. AFP via Getty Images
France was coordinating with European counterparts because other nations could also be affected, the particular person said, including that authorities were assessing whether other French firms were at risk.
Felix Aime, a senior cyberthreat intelligence analyst at Sekoia Threat Detection and Research, said Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium had also been affected.
Carrefour said 80 of its supermarkets were hit, while Monoprix, which operates about 490 shops in France, said 5% of its shops were affected.
Les Mousquetaires, proprietor of retailer Intermarche, said fridges at around 150 of its shops were heated up to 50 C for six hours in a single day. A spokesperson said all affected food had been discarded to remove health dangers.
Paris resident Geert de Clercq witnessed workers at an Intermarche in central Paris throwing cartfuls of defrosted frozen meals into a giant trash container, with molten ice cream sloshing out of damaged tubs on the road.
Cooperative U CEO Dominique Schelcher said his grocery store group had also been focused.
“Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is of extreme gravity and is unprecedented,” he wrote on X.
Food retailers E.Leclerc and Auchan did not reply to requests for remark.
There was no quick estimate of industry-wide losses, but Intermarche CEO Thierry Cotillard advised BFM TV the “unprecedented” attack would characterize losses amounting to “tens of millions of euros nationwide in a single day.”
The father or mother company of French retailer Intermarche said fridges at around 150 of its shops were heated up to 50 Celsius for six hours in a single day Sunday. CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON/EPA/Shutterstock
Christel Delberghe, director normal at European retail affiliation Eurocommerce, said, “This incident underlines the importance of resilience across the entire supply chain.”
Supermarket cold aisles are sometimes run by control panels that handle an whole store’s fridges and freezers and can be accessed over the web, which lets upkeep firms regulate them from anywhere.
The source close to Lecornu said ANSSI had recognized a vulnerability in software program equipped by Danish company Danfoss.
Danfoss said it was “aware of incidents in France affecting a limited number of refrigeration management systems.”
The affected models “were running outdated firmware,” Danfoss said, including that it had “long advised customers to keep supported systems updated with the latest firmware and to migrate legacy systems to current-generation solutions.”
Supermarket cold aisles are sometimes run by control panels that handle an whole store’s fridges and freezers and can be accessed over the web, which lets upkeep firms regulate them from anywhere. AFP via Getty Images
On Aug. 9, cybersecurity firm Claroty’s Team82 revealed analysis detailing vulnerabilities in the Danfoss AK-SM 800A controller. According to the report, software program updates issued by Danfoss addressed points that could have allowed attackers to bypass authentication controls and execute code on compromised units.
The attacks resemble disruptions reported at about a dozen US navy commissaries in late August that led to food losses after fridges were affected.
In a assertion, French retail affiliation Fédération du Commerce et de la Distribution called for “full transparency” from Danfoss about the incident. It said supermarkets aimed to defend customers and return to regular operations as soon as potential. The FCD said some impacted shops were already back up and operating.
A view of the closed frozen food aisle at a grocery store close to Nantes, France. REUTERS
Dutch retailer Ahold Delhaize, which operates the Netherlands’ largest grocery store chain Albert Heijn and has main operations in the US, said it was dealing with a “security issue” on its community and had taken several systems offline as a precaution.
A message on the retailer’s smartphone app said it was unable to ship groceries because of a “cybersecurity incident.”
Online orders account for about 10% of Albert Heijn gross sales. Physical shops remained open, while Dutch information company ANP reported that rival retailers had seen a surge in supply orders.
Ahold Delhaize said there was no purpose to see a hyperlink between the incidents in France and its supermarkets.
Ahold is the fourth-largest grocery retailer in the US. Websites for its Stop & Shop, Giant, Hannaford and Food Lion chains displayed notices saying “site temporarily down.”
It was unclear whether other operations had been affected.
