Hackers heat French supermarket fridges, sparking fires and food losses
Hackers altered temperature controls at more than 150 stores, forcing retailers to discard fresh and frozen goods and suspend online orders.
- A major coordinated cyberattack targeted commercial refrigeration systems across hundreds of French supermarkets overnight, remotely manipulating industrial cooling controls to trigger continuous forced defrost cycles and spike internal temperatures up to 50°C .
- The attack primarily impacted systems manufactured by Danish climate solutions company Danfoss, exploiting software vulnerabilities—previously flagged by security researchers in August—to override safety limits and run defrost heaters indefinitely.
- More than 300 Intermarché and Netto locations, nearly 100 Coopérative U stores, and several E.Leclerc outlets were hit, resulting in massive food spoilage, millions of euros in lost inventory, and localized electrical fire outbreaks triggered by overheating defrost elements.
- The Paris Prosecutor's Office opened a formal nationwide criminal investigation into the attack, while supermarket groups voiced concerns that standard commercial insurance policies may fail to cover damages caused by remote cyber sabotage.
- The breach occurred alongside a separate European retail cyber incident that disrupted website orders, delivery systems, and electronic shelf labels across Dutch and Belgian chains, including Albert Heijn and Delhaize.
278 Articles
278 Articles
Hundreds of French supermarkets have been hit by a cyberattack that caused their refrigerators and freezers to overheat, spoiling fresh and frozen food worth an estimated millions of euros. According to foreign media, the hackers took control of the software that regulates the temperatures of the refrigeration units, forcing some of them to heat up to 50°C overnight. The executive director of "Coopérative U" declared that several of its supermar…
The freezers and cold rooms of several hundred stores overheated during the night of 11-12 October, causing tons of loss of goods. The fault, resulting from software from Danish company Danfoss, was identified. An investigation was opened by the Anti Cybercrime Office.
Unprecedented attack affected at least 150 Intermarché and 80 Carrefour stores. French Cybersecurity Agency investigates by order of the Prime Minister.
A cyber attack affected the connected cooling systems of hundreds of French supermarkets.In about 150 Intermarché locations, the ice cream shops reached 50 degrees for six hours and had to dispose of all food.In the Netherlands there were similar attacks.
The main French supermarket chains have been hit today by a cyber attack that has put out refrigerators and freezers in hundreds of stores, forcing...
Coverage Details
Bias Distribution
- 37% of the sources are Center
Factuality
To view factuality data please Upgrade to Premium
