A cyberattack on the refrigeration systems of hundreds of supermarkets in France caused the temperature of fridges and freezers to rise up to 50 degrees Celsius (122F), spoiling food and causing fires in several stores.
Major retailers Intermarché, Coopérative U, E Leclerc and others confirmed the “unprecedented” cyberattack on Monday.
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At least 300 Intermarché or its Netto brand stores were targeted, as well as more than 100 Cooperative U points of sale, retailers told the AFP news agency.
Carrefour said 80 supermarkets had been affected, while Monoprix said around 5 percent of its approximately 490 stores had been affected. E Leclerc indicated that several of its stores were targeted.
The Paris prosecutor’s office specified that the “large-scale” attack had affected “connected refrigerators in several large food stores across France”. This led to food loss and fires, the bureau said.
The attack prompted Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to order the National Computer Security Agency (ANSSI) to investigate, a person in his office told the Reuters news agency.
The source said France was coordinating with its European counterparts because other countries could also be affected, adding that authorities were assessing whether other French companies were at risk.
“Unprecedented” attack
There is no immediate estimate of industry-wide losses, but Intermarché CEO Thierry Cotillard told BFM TV that the “unprecedented” attack would represent losses amounting to “tens of millions of euros nationally in a single day.”
According to BFM TV, the hackers “managed to remotely trigger the forced defrosting of the refrigeration systems of many stores”. This action led to the “destruction of stocks of fresh and frozen products”, it is specified.
Intermarché told AFP that the stores concerned should “discard all” fresh or frozen products.
Dominique Schelcher, general manager of Cooperative U, said the attack had disrupted refrigeration systems since Sunday evening.
“Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and the food supply of the French is extremely serious and unprecedented. It is unacceptable,” he wrote on X.
He indicated that the company’s teams were working to restore normal activity as quickly as possible and that an investigation would be necessary to “shed light on this attack”.
Supermarket cold aisles are typically run by control panels that manage an entire store’s refrigerators and freezers and are accessible via the Internet, allowing maintenance companies to adjust them from anywhere.
According to a source close to Lecornu, ANSSI has identified a vulnerability in software provided by the Danish company Danfoss.
Danfoss said it was “aware of incidents in France affecting a limited number of refrigeration management systems”.
The affected units were “using outdated firmware,” the company said, adding that it has “long advised customers” to keep their systems up to date and replace older equipment.
“A global wake-up call”
The attack took place after cybersecurity firm Claroty published a study on August 9 describing vulnerabilities in Danfoss systems that could allow attackers to bypass authentication.
The French retail federation, known as FCD, called on Danfoss to ensure “total transparency”.
Some affected stores were already operating again.
Félix Aimé, senior cyber threat intelligence analyst at Sekoia Threat Detection and Research, told Reuters that Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium had also been affected.
Steven Lachance, a cybersecurity analyst, told Al Jazeera the attack was not unprecedented, although it was rare in its scale. He said that once a vulnerability is discovered in internet-connected equipment, cyber attackers can connect remotely and trigger its functionality.
“We have connected infrastructure that is live on the Internet and can be hacked. This is a new reality,” he said, calling the attack a “global wake-up call.”
“We absolutely need national and international measures to prevent these attacks, otherwise this will continue,” he said.
While retailers have lost millions of euros on food, the next target could be worse, warns Lachance. “This could target energy infrastructure or hospitals,” he said.
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