European supermarkets are being hit by cyber attacks one after another. Hackers remotely changed the settings of refrigeration and freezing equipment, causing the temperature of some equipment to rise by as much as 50 degrees Celsius, causing large amounts of food to be ruined. After hundreds of supermarkets were damaged in France in October, the disaster spread to several countries in early November. Five federal agencies in the United States also issued a joint warning, calling on cold chain operators to immediately strengthen security.
This wave of incidents has exposed fundamental security shortcomings in connected devices: the management interface is directly open to the Internet, weak passwords and lack of updates in older systems can turn remote management functions into tools of destruction. The identity of the attacker still needs to be clarified, and the vulnerability has also prompted the outside world to re-examine the security of food, medical cold chain, and home smart devices.
The first wave hit France in October. World News reported that the refrigeration systems of more than 350 supermarkets had been hacked, including Carrefour, Monoprix, Intermarché and Cooperative U. Intermarché’s parent company said refrigerators in about 150 stores were raised to 50 °C for six hours overnight, and all affected food was discarded; Carrefour reported that 80 supermarkets were attacked.
The second wave emerged in several European countries on 2 November, with at least 11 countries reporting related incidents. 15 Carrefour stores in Belgium were affected, 7 Coop stores in Sweden were affected, 13 SuperValu stores in Ireland were forced to remove some products from shelves, IKEA’s Belgian stronghold was also affected, and subsequent disasters were recorded in Germany, Romania, and the United Kingdom. The refrigerator in a Belgian butcher shop was adjusted to 18 degrees Celsius, and meat worth about 15,000 euros was wasted. This shows that the temperature rise varies from place to place and not all devices reach 50 °C.
👉”Refrigerator turned into 50℃ hot cabinet” Hundreds of supermarkets in France were hacked and food was destroyed, resulting in millions in losses
👉European supermarket refrigerators are facing a second wave of hacker attacks, affecting countries and prompting operators to upgrade defenses
