Hackers turned up the heat on European supermarket fridges in eight countries
Supermarkets across eight European countries were throwing away food and rewiring their cooling systems on Tuesday after hackers raised fridge and freezer temperatures in an attack identical to one that hit dozens of French stores three weeks ago.
Sweden's Coop said the seven stores affected there were back up and running, but their refrigeration systems have been disconnected from the internet. The chain is moving to 5G networks and modern modems instead of 4G connections, a process it had already begun after the French incident. "We are looking quite thoroughly and deeply into the status of the entire network of stores to see if we risk any vulnerability anywhere in the entire network," a spokesperson said.
Software provider Danfoss, whose systems were again among those targeted, said it had been in close contact with customers over the past three weeks and recommended that systems should not be directly accessible via the internet. Frank Groenewegen, a cybersecurity expert at Deloitte in The Hague, said retailers should check whether their refrigerator controllers are vulnerable, whether they are connected to the internet, and whether they run the latest security updates. "And if they don't even know, then remove them from the public internet immediately," he said. Disconnecting does not fix the root cause, he added, but it isolates the systems so an attacker can no longer reach them.
The structure of European grocery retail has widened the exposure. Many supermarkets are run by independent owners in cooperative arrangements, so systems differ from store to store. Swedish grocer ICA said all 23 stores hit on Monday had equipment connected outside the chain's centrally managed network. Store owner Christian Olofsson said he was in the process of changing the security systems at his shops in Tomelilla and Sjobo when they were hacked. German operator Edeka, which had fridges hacked at a store in Reisbach, said there are no standardised refrigeration systems across its network of independent retailers. Even integrated groups were not immune: Carrefour, which had 80 franchised stores in France hacked three weeks ago, suffered the same attack again at 15 stores in Belgium on Monday.
A Swedish police spokesperson said around 10 reports had been filed since Monday and more were expected. The EU cybersecurity agency ENISA said the large-scale nature of the attacks across several member states "underscores the importance of European cooperation, rapid information-sharing and coordinated responses to cyber incidents." In Britain, Richard Horne, chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, said hackers tried to target small meat-processing firms with minimal impact, and that the agency was "obviously on heightened alert." He described the fridge attacks as an early sign of increasingly frequent disruptions as old technology fails to keep pace with hackers.
What it means for Pakistan: The attacks underline a risk that applies to Pakistan's own retail and cold-chain operators as they digitise: internet-connected controllers and building systems are only as safe as their weakest link. Pakistan's banks and payment providers already fall under State Bank of Pakistan cybersecurity rules, but the country has no equivalent framework for the industrial and building-control devices that run freezers, air conditioning and other equipment. For Pakistani retailers investing in connected cold storage, the lesson from Europe is to keep such devices off the public internet and patch them, rather than assume a managed network is protection enough.
