Food: Supermarkets report suspected cyber attack on refrigerators

In several European countries, the temperatures in cooling systems were manipulated again. Attacks of this kind have become more frequent recently.

Stockholm/Brussels. In several Swedish, Belgian and Luxembourg supermarkets, the temperatures in the refrigerators and freezers rose dramatically on Monday night. At least one affected store in Sweden attributed this to a cyberattack.

Retail group Ahold Delhaize also said an “IT glitch” had affected cooling systems in dozens of its supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg. Company spokeswoman Sarah De Meester said the incidents were being investigated. Ahold Delhaize had already reported a cyber attack to the Dutch police last month.

In Sweden, the ICA and Coop chains were affected. A Swedish supermarket said on social media that the temperature in its refrigerators and freezers had been increased to around 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit). The company told ICA by email that several branches were affected by the overnight outage.

According to the daily newspaper “Aftonbladet”, the Coop cooperative explained that six of its branches were affected. The incident is similar to a large-scale attack in France last month. According to French police, hackers took control of the refrigeration systems of hundreds of supermarkets, leading to food spoilage and fires.