Hacking of supermarket refrigeration systems: “We didn’t have this culture of security,” recognizes Michel-Édouard Leclerc

No one in mass retail had anticipated a cyberattack of this nature. Coopérative U, Intermarché, Monoprix, Carrefour, E.Leclerc: during the night from Sunday to Monday, in just a few hours, hackers took control of the refrigeration systems and deliberately disrupted the refrigerators of hundreds of stores across the country, leading to the destruction of tons of goods and losses of several million euros in total. “We did not have this culture of security,” admitted this Tuesday on CNews Michel-Édouard Leclerc, president of the strategic committee of the E. Leclerc centers

He is not alone. “In my entire professional career, I have never seen this,” the CEO of Coopérative U, Dominique Schelcher, admitted the day before. At a time when a large part of operational systems are connected to the Internet, distribution is exposed to new security vulnerabilities. “It’s the fact of being connected to the Internet, it’s something new,” which pushes the sector to “adapt,” believes Michel-Édouard Leclerc. Indeed, it is the cold regulation boxes (in particular from manufacturers Danfoss and Dixell) which equip a large part of the French supermarkets and which are managed via a simple web interface, which constituted the gateway for pirates.

Lighting, air conditioning, access and alarm systems: the threat is now found in all points of sale, believes the industry boss. “We need to secure not only our customers’ data, but also all our systems,” underlined Michel-Édouard Leclerc. Beyond distribution, it is the whole of “civil society which can be destabilized, unstructured”, warns the president of the strategic committee of the centers E. Leclerc. Is this foreign destabilization or a large-scale cyber vandalism operation? Impossible to say at the moment. One thing is certain: “We must not let this pass,” he concluded.