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PARIS: Hackers raised the temperature of refrigerators and freezers \u200bat hundreds of French supermarkets to as high as 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight, causing fires and spoiling food.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Paris prosecutor\u2019s office said on Monday \u200cthat a \u201clarge-scale\u201d attack was \u201caffecting connected refrigerators in several major food retailers across France\u201d, leading to food losses and fires.<\/p>\n Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has instructed France\u2019s National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) to investigate, a person in his office said. France was coordinating with European counterparts because other countries could also be affected, the person said, adding that authorities were assessing whether other French companies were at risk.<\/p>\n Felix Aime, a senior cyber threat intelligence analyst \u200bat Sekoia Threat Detection and Research, said Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium had also been affected.<\/p>\n Carrefour said 80 of its supermarkets were hit, while Monoprix, which operates about 490 \u200bstores in France, said 5% of its stores were affected.<\/p>\n Les Mousquetaires, owner of retailer Intermarche, said fridges at around 150 of its ?stores were heated up to 50 C for six hours overnight. A spokesperson said all affected food had been discarded to eliminate health risks.<\/p>\n Paris resident Geert de Clercq witnessed staff \u200bat an Intermarche in central Paris throwing cartfuls of defrosted frozen foods into a giant trash container, with molten ice cream sloshing out of broken tubs on the street.<\/p>\n Cooperative U CEO \u200bDominique Schelcher said his supermarket group had also been targeted.<\/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 Food retailers E.Leclerc and Auchan did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n There was no immediate estimate of industry-wide losses, but Intermarch\u00e9 CEO Thierry Cotillard told BFM TV the \u201cunprecedented\u201d attack would represent losses amounting to \u201ctens \u200bof millions of euros nationwide in a single day.\u201d<\/p>\n Christel Delberghe, director general at European retail association Eurocommerce, said, \u201cThis incident underlines the importance of resilience across the entire supply chain.\u201d<\/p>\n Supermarket cold aisles are typically run by control panels that manage an entire store\u2019s fridges and freezers and can be accessed over the internet, which lets maintenance companies adjust them from anywhere.<\/p>\n The source \u200cclose to Lecornu said ANSSI had identified a vulnerability in software supplied by Danish company Danfoss.<\/p>\n Danfoss said it was \u201caware of 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 On August 9, cybersecurity firm Claroty\u2019s Team82 published research detailing vulnerabilities in the Danfoss AK-SM 800A controller. According to the report, software updates issued by Danfoss addressed issues that could have allowed attackers to bypass \u200bauthentication controls and execute code on compromised devices.<\/p>\n The \u200battacks resemble disruptions reported at about a dozen US military commissaries in late August that led to food losses after fridges were affected.<\/p>\n In a statement, French retail association F\u00e9d\u00e9ration du Commerce et de la Distribution called for \u201cfull transparency\u201d from Danfoss about the incident. It said supermarkets aimed to protect consumers and return to \u200bnormal operations as soon as possible. The FCD said some impacted stores were already back up and running.<\/p>\n Dutch retailer \u200bAhold Delhaize, which operates the ?Netherlands\u2019 largest supermarket chain Albert Heijn and has major operations in the US, said it was dealing with a \u201csecurity issue\u201d on its network and had taken several systems offline as a precaution.<\/p>\n A message on the retailer\u2019s smartphone app said it was unable to deliver groceries because of a \u201ccybersecurity incident\u201d.<\/p>\n Online orders account for about 10% of Albert Heijn sales. Physical stores remained open, while Dutch news ?agency ANP \u200breported that rival retailers had seen a surge in delivery orders.<\/p>\n Ahold Delhaize said there was no reason to \u200bsee a link between the incidents in France and its supermarkets.<\/p>\n Ahold is the fourth-largest grocery retailer in the US. Websites for its Stop & Shop, Giant, Hannaford and Food Lion chains displayed notices saying \u201csite temporarily down\u201d.<\/p>\n It was unclear whether \u200bother operations had been affected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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