Cyber-attack disables supermarket freezers across seven European countries

A cyber-attack has affected refrigerators and freezers in dozens of supermarkets across seven European countries. Around 40 Delhaize supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg were hit, along with a smaller number of stores in Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Finland.

Sabcobel, a Belgian manufacturer of some of the affected refrigeration units, said the attack switched the evaporators into defrost mode, causing the units to warm up. The method is believed to match an earlier incident last month that affected hundreds of supermarkets in France, where millions of euros worth of food reportedly had to be discarded.

In Sweden, freezers had to be emptied at several ICA grocery stores following the attack.

Sabcobel, which manages Delhaize's refrigeration systems, confirmed the incident was a cyber-attack and said staff had worked through the night and into the morning to disconnect affected units from the network. The company said that since the French attack in early October it had been trying to address the vulnerability, but noted that fully protecting the units requires physical modifications rather than software updates alone.