These incidents echo an attack last month in France, during which hackers took control of cooling units in as many as 700 supermarkets, raising the temperature to as high as 50 °C, causing fires and food losses estimated at tens of millions of euros.
In Sweden, Coop confirmed that six of its some 800 stores had been victims of a cyberattack at dawn on Monday. An ICA store in Sjöbo said its devices had been hacked and their temperature set to 50 °C. In Ireland, SuperValu, the country's third-largest retailer, said a specific model of refrigeration systems had been affected in 13 of its 223 stores and that refrigerated and frozen products had been withdrawn from sale.
Individual supermarkets reportedly suffered losses ranging from several tens of thousands of euros to more than 130,000 euros. Stores had to throw away large quantities of fresh meat, dairy products and frozen items. Major retail chains in at least seven European countries said refrigerator and freezer temperatures had risen overnight to as high as 50 °C in some stores.
In France, Système U, Intermarché and E.Leclerc stores had already been hit on Monday, October 12, targeting their fridges and freezers. A similar attack had struck the country in mid-October.
Another store in Stockholm said its freezers were down"due to a cyberattack at 2 a.m."and that"everything was destroyed."ICA also said that"a limited number"of its stores had encountered refrigeration problems, without confirming a cyberattack.
In Brussels, journalists saw empty refrigerators and freezers and a sign:"Due to cyberattacks, there will be no products in the refrigerated or frozen aisles."An official told Belga that the incident was a cyberattack and that the evaporators had been put into defrost mode."We spent the whole night and morning disconnecting the affected installations.".
The Estonian chain Selver said one of its outlets had been hit. Supermarkets using controllers from two other companies were also targeted, according to the authorities, who did not specify the origin of the incidents. According to him, it is"a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine consumer confidence – a warning we must take seriously.".