{"id":652865,"date":"2026-10-12T22:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T22:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/652865\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T22:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T22:58:09","slug":"hackers-force-fridge-temperatures-in-hundreds-of-supermarkets-up-to-50c-overnight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/652865\/","title":{"rendered":"Hackers force fridge temperatures in hundreds of supermarkets up to 50C overnight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hackers forced the temperature of many French supermarket fridges up to 50C overnight, in an \u201cunprecedented\u201d cyberattack<\/a> affecting several hundred stores across the country, with fires and food losses reported.<\/p>\n

The Paris prosecutor\u2019s office said the large-scale attack was \u201caffecting connected refrigerators \u2060in several \u200bmajor food retailers across France\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reported damage included \u201cfood losses and fires\u201d, it added.<\/p>\n

The prime minister, S\u00e9bastien Lecornu, instructed France\u2019s national cybersecurity agency ANSSI to investigate, \u2060a person in his office said.<\/p>\n

France \u201cwas coordinating with its European counterparts, as other countries may also be affected\u201d, while also investigating whether any other French \u2060firms were at risk, they said.<\/p>\n

Les Mousquetaires, which owns retailer Intermarch\u00e9, said about 150 of its stores had been \u200bhit, with fridges heated up to 50C for six hours. \u200cIt had thrown all the food away to avoid any health risks, a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Dominique Schelcher, chief executive of Coop\u00e9rative \u200cU, said his supermarkets had also been hit by the attack.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTargeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is of extreme gravity and is unprecedented,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n

Several other supermarket chains, including Carrefour, Monoprix, and Auchan, did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

According to BFM TV, France\u2019s largest supermarket chain E Leclerc was also affected, with hackers \u201cmanaging to remotely trigger the forced defrosting of the refrigeration systems in numerous stores\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

E Leclerc did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Attack may also have affected Netherlands<\/p>\n

The attack may not have been confined to France. The Dutch supermarket company \u200cAhold Delhaize said it was also dealing with a \u201csecurity issue\u201d in its network, and had taken several systems offline to protect them.<\/p>\n

Stores of its Albert Heijn chain, \u200bthe largest supermarket chain in the Netherlands, which also has several stores in Belgium, remained open in both countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But its online app and delivery system were down, while electronic price tags often displayed the wrong information.<\/p>\n

It was not clear if there was any link between the French supermarket attack and the \u2060problems flagged by Ahold Delhaize.<\/p>\n

Delhaize supermarkets, also part of Ahold Delhaize but operating \u200bin Belgium and Luxembourg, were \u200balso affected by the security issue, \u200bBelgian media reported.<\/p>\n

The source close to Lecornu said ANSSI had identified a vulnerability \u200bin software supplied by \u200cthe Danish company Danfoss.<\/p>\n

Danfoss \u200bsaid it was \u201caware \u200bof incidents in France affecting a limited number of refrigeration management systems\u201d.<\/p>\n

The affected units \u201cwere running outdated firmware\u201d, Danfoss said, adding that it had \u201clong advised customers to keep supported systems updated with the latest firmware and to migrate legacy systems to current-generation solutions\u201d.<\/p>\n

The incident comes against the background of growing concern over the potential havoc that can be caused in Europe in all sectors by cyberattacks by malicious actors.<\/p>\n

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, a strong supporter of Ukraine in its fight against the Russian invasion, last month ordered measures to protect France\u2019s critical infrastructure from Russian \u201chybrid attacks\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hackers forced the temperature of many French supermarket fridges up to 50C overnight, in an \u201cunprecedented\u201d cyberattack affecting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[49382,72,29662,61,60],"class_list":["post-652865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-consumer-affairs","tag-business","tag-cybercrime","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}