A second wave of attacks on refrigeration controllers hits more than 100 European stores
Fridges and freezers warmed overnight at shops in six countries, three weeks after a similar attack on about 700 French supermarkets.
Evidence: Independent reports. Security stories run only with a named disclosure or independent reporting behind them.
More than 100 stores in several European countries found their fridges and freezers heating up overnight from Sunday to Monday, and several retailers blamed a cyberattack, SecurityWeek reports. The affected businesses range from major chains to small butcher shops in Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden. Some units were set as high as 50°C (122°F), and problems have also been reported in Finland, Italy and Portugal. The Hacker News reports that stores had to pull food from sale. No one has claimed responsibility. Investigators have not established whether this wave is connected to the attacks that disrupted French supermarkets overnight from October 11 to 12. In that earlier wave, about 700 supermarkets, including Intermarché, Carrefour, Coopérative U and Monoprix stores, had their refrigeration units forced into defrost mode. Food spoiled, and the attacks reportedly caused fires. CERT-FR, the incident response team of France's cybersecurity agency ANSSI, first linked those compromises to Danfoss AK-SM and AK-SC series controllers, then widened its alert a day later to cover Copeland and Dixell XWEB systems. Danfoss said most of the hacked units were legacy devices. The attacks target internet-exposed controllers in ordinary retail settings. They show how weaknesses in operational technology can lead directly to wasted food and safety risks for retailers of every size.