Hackers heat French supermarket fridges, sparking fires and food losses
Authorities say hackers forced supermarket refrigerators into continuous defrost, spoiling food and causing fires at hundreds of stores, with losses estimated in the tens of millions of euros.
- 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.
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Veliki kibernetički attack poremetio je rad rashladnih sustava u stotinama trgovina nekoliko velikih french maloprodajnih lanaca prehrambenih proizvoda, izjavio je u ponedjeljak glasnogovornik maloprodajne grupcije Les Mousquetaires. Hakeri su tijekom noći uspjeli prebaciti hladnjake i zamrzivače na način […] Objava Neviđeni attack on a French supermarket. Hackers preko noći odmrznuli tone hrane iz zamrzivača pojavila se prvi puta on Novi list.
A cyberattack disrupted a French supermarket's cooling system, causing food to spoil. Two stores lost Rp 5.5 billion.
In a cyberattack launched in France on the night of October 11th to 12th, the cooling systems of the country's leading supermarket chains were compromised. The attackers interfered with the temperature control systems of the refrigerators in the stores. More than 500 stores were affected in the attack, resulting in losses of millions of euros.
A hacker attack on hundreds of French supermarkets has put Danfoss in the spotlight. Coop Denmark and Salling Group are not affected, but are following the development closely.
Over 400 major retail stores across France were subjected to unprecedented, simultaneous cyberattacks overnight. Hackers remotely controlled refrigerators and freezers in large supermarkets, raising internal temperatures to 50 degrees Celsius. Fresh and frozen foods that melted overnight were discarded entirely, and fires even broke out in some stores. Amid mounting anxiety over hybrid attacks targeting key infrastructure in Europe,
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