Hundreds of grocery stores across France and other European countries recently suffered massive losses due to a cyberattack targeting their refrigeration systems. Hackers broke into the controllers of commercial refrigerators and freezers, turning them into heating units that reached temperatures as high as 50 degrees Celsius. This resulted in the spoilage of vast amounts of food and even caused small fires in some instances. The precise identity and motives of the attackers remain unknown.

The affected refrigeration controllers, manufactured by Danish company Danfoss, were found to have vulnerabilities that could be exploited for remote code execution or denial-of-service attacks. These vulnerabilities were disclosed by cybersecurity researchers from Claroty's Team82, who had informed Danfoss of the issues. While Danfoss issued patches, the responsibility for updating the firmware lay with the customers. Unfortunately, many grocers were running outdated systems.

Reports indicate that the attacks impacted over 700 grocery and retail stores in France and extended to other countries including Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany, and Belgium. A major supermarket chain in the Netherlands also took precautionary measures by shutting down its systems. Intermarché, a prominent French chain, reported financial losses in the tens of millions of euros.

France's national CERT identified another affected platform, XWEB from Dixell and Copeland, which was also involved in the attacks. The event underscores the critical importance of maintaining updated firmware and securing operational technology (OT) systems against cyber threats. Experts emphasize that such attacks could have been avoided by following standard cybersecurity practices.