Hackers raise temperatures at supermarkets across 11 European nations

At least 11 European countries reported supermarket cyberattacks this week, a sharp increase from the nine nations affected on Monday. Officials confirmed on Tuesday that hackers successfully raised the temperatures of refrigeration systems in stores located in Germany, Romania, and the United Kingdom. The expansion of the incident brings the total count of affected countries to a minimum of 11, signaling a wider reach than initially reported.

The European Union promised a collective response to the disruption. Thomas Regnier, an EU spokesperson, stated that bloc agencies are coordinating with national authorities to develop a joint defense strategy. He characterized the events as "not isolated incidents" and emphasized the need for collective resilience against such cyber threats. The Union declined to identify specific culprits, noting that the motive for the attacks remains unknown.

Romanian officials downplayed the sophistication of the breach. Dan Cimpean, director of the National Cyber Security Directorate, told AFP that the attack "seems semi-amateurish." He stated that no state actor was suspected and that no other infrastructure was compromised. The Romanian government confirmed that six supermarkets were affected, while four stores in Germany also reported issues.

Belgium was among the hardest hit on Monday, with dozens of stores across multiple grocery chains experiencing refrigeration failures. Federal prosecutors in Belgium opened an investigation into the incident. In Italy, approximately 20 supermarkets were affected. Giuseppe Spadaro, director of a Coop supermarket group in Sicily, said four of its 300 stores were hit, resulting in thousands of euros in damage. He told Corriere della Sera that the shelves are now empty after staff discarded spoiled inventory.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office described the impact in Italy as "limited." The government held talks with intelligence heads and the National Cybersecurity Agency on Tuesday. A statement from the office noted that while relevant bodies remain on high alert, there is no cause for alarm. In the United Kingdom, Richard Horne, chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, told the BBC that the issue affected the whole food supply chain. He noted that vulnerable technology was exploited in a couple of instances, though the impact on small meat-processing firms was minimal.

The attacks mirror a similar cyberattack that swept through hundreds of supermarkets in France in October. In Sweden, the supermarket chain Coop reported that refrigerators and freezers at seven stores were connected to old 4G networks. Carlos Cancinos, a spokesperson for Coop, said the chain has accelerated an upgrade to 5G networks and modern modems to prevent future issues. He stated that the move helps solve a large share of problems of this kind.

Danfoss, a Danish manufacturer of refrigeration controls whose systems were targeted, said it has been in close contact with customers for three weeks. The company recommended that its systems not be directly accessible from the internet. Frank Groenewegen, a cybersecurity expert at Deloitte in The Hague, urged retailers to check if their refrigeration controllers are connected to the internet and running the latest security updates. He advised that if companies do not know the status of their systems, they should remove them from the public internet immediately to isolate them from attackers.