A hacking attack on European supermarkets spread across the continent on Monday, hitting fridges and freezers from Sweden to Belgium and forcing stores to throw away food in an incident that echoed a similar attack in France last month, Reuters reports.
The attack, which raised temperatures in refrigerator and freezer units at dozens of stores, hit supermarket groups Ahold Delhaize (AD.AS), opens new tab and Colruyt (COLR.BR), opens new tab in Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as Swedish grocers ICA and Coop. Furniture-to-meatballs retailer IKEA also saw at least one store affected.
"Everything is destroyed," Engla Ingwall, sales manager at an ICA franchise store in Stockholm, told Reuters during a visit to the store on Monday, adding the attack occurred at 2 a.m. (0100 GMT) but was only noticed hours later.
"There has been a cyberattack and all our freezers reached 50 degrees (Celsius)."
A spokesperson for privately held ICA said the company was aware that a "limited number of stores were affected by an incident overnight, which impacted their refrigeration and freezer systems".
The latest incidents follow an attack in France last month when police said hackers seized control of cooling units at hundreds of supermarkets, causing fires and food losses. Ahold also reported a cybersecurity incident to police last month.
While no one has claimed responsibility for either attack, the incidents have heightened concerns among European authorities about hybrid threats to infrastructure amid growing security tensions since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in sabotage or hybrid warfare operations. Reuters could not establish who was behind Monday's attacks or whether they were linked to the incidents in France.
"It is not known who is behind this attack, and it may never be determined," said Katrien Eggers, spokesperson for Belgium's Centre for Cybersecurity, adding she was concerned about the growing number of incidents, in part due to AI.
"All IT systems are potentially vulnerable, and AI can now be used to successfully exploit these weaknesses — especially by sophisticated actors," she said.
