{"id":805308,"date":"2026-10-17T07:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-17T07:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/805308\/"},"modified":"2026-10-17T07:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T07:00:10","slug":"not-cool-who-hacked-frances-supermarket-fridges-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/805308\/","title":{"rendered":"Not cool: who hacked France\u2019s supermarket fridges? | France"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shortly before midnight last Sunday, the digital thermostats controlling hundreds of supermarket cold aisles across France<\/a> began to flicker and rise.<\/p>\n

In a \u201cbizarre and unprecedented\u201d cyber-attack,<\/a> hackers had remotely overridden the temperature settings on thousands of freezers, fridges and chiller cabinets pushing them from as low as -27C (-16.6F) to well over 50C (122F).<\/p>\n

Over the next four to six hours, the food inside first defrosted, then slowly began to cook.<\/p>\n

Shop staff arriving early to restock shelves reported catching a blast of hot air, like opening an oven, when they went to fill freezers. One Normandy supermarket reported a number of its freezers had been pushed to 80C (176F). In certain stores, the extreme temperature rise had sparked fires triggering sprinklers and water damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a catastrophe,\u201d said one worker at the large Intermarch\u00e9 supermarket in the south-west suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux in Paris<\/a>. \u201cThey pushed the freezers here up to 62C. Everything had to be thrown away. It was such a waste.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supermarket staff had to remove tons of spoiled food and work late to reorder and restock shelves. Photograph: Lucien Libert\/Reuters<\/p>\n

After removing tons of spoiled food, staff at the store worked until almost midnight on Monday to reorder and restock shelves. \u201cThankfully, we were able to get things almost back to normal the same day,\u201d another shop worker added. \u201cBut we had to clear out everything in the freezers.\u201d<\/p>\n

If shop managers first assumed it was an isolated failure, it soon became clear up to 700 stores \u2013 including those from the Intermarch\u00e9, Coop\u00e9rative U, Carrefour, Leclerc and Monoprix chains along with a number of smaller independent shops \u2013 had been victims of a cyber-attack.<\/p>\n

Dominique Schelcher, the president of Coop\u00e9rative U, said 80 of its 2,000 supermarkets had been targeted. \u201cThis is a completely unprecedented, unexpected, and extremely serious attack. In my entire professional career, I\u2019ve never seen anything like it,\u201d the shocked executive told French radio.<\/p>\n

The Paris public prosecutor\u2019s office immediately opened an investigation into the latest in a series of cyber-attacks that have made France the most hacked country in Europe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

G\u00e9r\u00f4me Billois<\/a>, a partner in the cybersecurity and technology company Wavestone, said the hack had the hallmarks of political sabotage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe two most feasible scenarios are either it was a group of youngsters or activists who wanted to blow up a few freezers to prove what they could do, or it was a destabilising attack, what we call sabotage, by internal or external state actors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A woman walks past empty refrigerators at an Intermarch\u00e9 supermarket in N\u00e9vez, western France. Photograph: Fred Tanneau\/AFP\/Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cAs for the attack\u2019s signature, the most likely scenario is still a destabilisation attack \u2013 one designed to convey the message to populations that they are not safe, to convey the impression that the government is falling apart, and ultimately to instil fear.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently there are two international actors known for doing this sort of thing: Iran and Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hackers had pirated the controllers supplied by the Danish company Danfoss that controls the freezers and fridges. Most supermarket cold aisles are connected to the internet to allow remote maintenance and alerts for system failures. Initial investigations suggest the hackers disabled alarm systems before tampering with the thermostats, or extended the defrost programme by several hours to avoid triggering alarms.<\/p>\n

Danfoss said it had identified security flaws last year and had \u201clong recommended\u201d that customers install updates or replace obsolete unsupported systems. The affected refrigeration units were \u201crunning outdated firmware\u201d, it said. In the days following the first wave of attacks, France\u2019s cyber-attack alert centre ANSSI confirmed <\/a>supermarkets using controllers from two other companies were also targeted.<\/p>\n

Marta Rybczy\u0144ska, a cybersecurity specialist and researcher, said she had found previous security warnings about old supermarket freezers running out-of-date software and newer models not having firmware updated.<\/p>\n

\"FrenchFrench supermarket director apologises after cyber-attack spoils fresh and frozen food – video<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of these freezers hadn\u2019t been supported by the manufacturers for several years and there were notices saying they should be replaced. Other freezers were newer but the software hadn\u2019t been updated,\u201d Rybczy\u0144ska said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hackers found these weaknesses and used them.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cMany of the freezers appear to have been running with a default password. The hackers were able to modify or turn off the alerts so the shops only realised when the first person arrived in the morning and saw the damage that had been done.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most recent French cyber-attack mirrors a similar incident in the US in August when connected fridges and freezers at a dozen military commissaries \u2013 on-base food stores \u2013 went into unscheduled defrost cycles overnight<\/a> causing massive food loss.<\/p>\n

France is the most heavily pirated country in Europe by the volume of records exposed by hackers, according to the cybersecurity and risk management company Upguard.<\/a><\/p>\n

In the last three years, hackers have breached France\u2019s health system, France Travail, the government-run jobseekers agency, the National Agency for Identity Documents (ANTS) and most of the big mobile phone companies. This summer, the economy and finance ministry lost the personal and fiscal records of 678,000 taxpayers to a series of cyber-attacks.<\/p>\n

Supermarket employees restock goods in Nancy, north-east France. Photograph: Muhammed Said Tako\/Anadolu\/Getty<\/p>\n

Billois says France has fallen behind in addressing cybersecurity and has still not adopted the EU\u2019s Cyber Resilience Act (2024) that introduced mandatory security for internet-connected devices.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a text that\u2019s not political and that everyone agrees on but is delayed because there\u2019s always more urgent legislation or there are quibbles about amendments, and this has been a disaster,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In the UK, the cyber security and resilience (network and information systems) bill to tackle cyber threats, is wending a similarly tortuous way through parliament. However, it fails to directly cover the food industry.<\/p>\n

Supermarket boss Schelcher was quick to shift the blame for the attack on to unnamed refrigeration contractors who maintain the cold aisle equipment. \u201cOur supermarkets are not customers of Danfoss,\u201d he told RTL radio.<\/p>\n

As yet, no individual or group has claimed responsibility for the supermarket cyber-attack; Paris prosecutors have instructed detectives from its anti-cybercrime unit but Billois says finding the hackers will take time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible they\u2019ll be identified eventually, but it could take weeks if not months to be certain because hackers know how to hide their tracks,\u201d Billois said.<\/p>\n

Rybczy\u0144ska added: \u201cWhether it\u2019s possible to trace the hackers depends on their level of capability; if it\u2019s a handful of youngsters, it\u2019s easier because they probably won\u2019t have thought to remove traces. If they are professionals it\u2019s more complicated and will take longer. If they\u2019re in a foreign country, it\u2019ll be extremely difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

The total cost of the cyber-attack has yet to be calculated but Thierry Cotillard, the CEO of Intermarch\u00e9, said losses could run to \u201ctens of millions of euros\u201d, which store companies say is unlikely to be covered by their insurance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bizarre story,\u201d Billois added. \u201cThere\u2019s a shared responsibility between the supermarkets, the refrigeration companies who are sub-contractors and who maintain the material, and the software company. We cannot say who is to blame except, of course, the hackers.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in the end it comes down to freezers connected to the internet without being adequately secured. And that must be a wake-up call to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shortly before midnight last Sunday, the digital thermostats controlling hundreds of supermarket cold aisles across France began to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-805308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}