A Hacker Got Into Store Freezers in Seven European Countries
Dozens of stores across seven European nations have had their fridges and freezers damaged by a cyber-attack. Around 40 Delhaize supermarkets were affected in Belgium and Luxembourg, with fewer outlets hit in Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Finland.
Belgian manufacturer Sabcobel, which produces some of the affected refrigerators, said the units’ evaporators were switched to defrost mode, causing them to warm up, believed to be the same method used in last month’s incident that damaged hundreds of French retailers.
Local media stated at the time that millions of euros worth of food had to be thrown away in October. The event was a cyber-attack, and the company had been “working all night and morning to disconnect the affected units from the network,” Stephan Moelans, CEO of Sabcobel, which administers Delhaize’s systems, told the Belga news agency on Monday.
“We have been working since the French attack in early October to protect our customers fridges against this vulnerability, he added, but devices needed physical upgrades, not just software updates.
Most supermarkets in Europe are connected to the internet, so maintenance and troubleshooting can be done remotely. The easiest way is to control the fridges remotely via a secure internet connection. Moelans added: Most of our customers switched to that after the attack in France. In some stores across Europe, freezers reportedly hit temperatures as high as 50C (122F).
US authorities are examining the reason of refrigeration failures at several US military locations in August and are working with French officials to see if the occurrences are related.
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