Christine Drews Sieger
A suspected cyberattack overnight sent supermarket fridges soaring to 50°C across seven European nations, destroying vast food stocks.
Supermarket staff across Northern and Western Europe arrived at work on Monday to find empty aisles, malfunctioning equipment, and spoiled goods.
Overnight, refrigeration and freezer systems in several retail chains suddenly spiked to temperatures as high as 50°C (122°F), destroying vast quantities of fresh meat, dairy, and frozen products, The Guardian reports.
Retailers in at least seven countries—including Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Ireland—reported widespread cooling failures.
The incident closely mirrors a major breach in France last month, where hackers breached temperature controllers across roughly 700 supermarkets, inflicting tens of millions of euros in damages.
Sweden felt the impact before dawn. An ICA store in Stockholm announced that its freezers failed “due to a 2am cyberattack” and confirmed that “everything was destroyed.”
The disruption prompted sharp condemnation from EU Food and Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen, who called the repeated attacks deeply alarming, describing them as:
“A deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine consumers’ confidence in it.”
Bare Shelves and Midnight Call-Outs
Stores in several regions had to pull perishable items from sale immediately.
Shoppers at Belgian retail giant Ahold Delhaize encountered cordoned-off sections and notices that read:
“Due to cyberattacks, there will be no products on the refrigerated or freezer shelves. We offer our sincere apologies.”
Similar disruptions were reported at an Ikea branch in Mons, Belgium, and at 13 locations of Ireland’s SuperValu chain. At Carrefour Belgium, spokesperson Mich Vergauwen was unequivocal:
“It’s a cyber-attack, there is no other reason.”
Emergency crews were mobilized in the early hours of Monday morning to disconnect affected units manually.
Technicians discovered that digital intruders had systematically overridden control settings, switching evaporators into defrost mode, according to The Guardian.
Exposed Infrastructure Points to Sabotage
Cybersecurity analysts note that retail cooling hardware represents an easy target for remote interference.
Large supermarket chains manage thousands of internet-connected thermostats, door panels, and building management systems, many of which carry known vulnerabilities or lack critical security patches.
Tom Hegel, a threat researcher at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, noted that retail infrastructure remains vulnerable because chains oversee vast numbers of networked controllers reachable from the public web.
Because the attackers made no financial demands, investigators suspect the motive was disruption and supply-chain sabotage rather than commercial extortion.
Authorities have not yet identified who is responsible for the wave of attacks, The Guardian reports.
