The cyberattacks on commercial refrigerators and freezers in Europe continue, as a slew of grocery stores in Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Sweden report widespread food wastage as a result of miscreants raising the temperatures to highs of 50ºC (122°F).In Belgium, around 40 Delhaize stores were affected after the attackers reportedly switched fridges and freezers into defrost mode overnight, between Sunday and Monday, resulting in stock issues.Diego Louwers, a Proxy Delhaize store manager in Overijse, near Brussels, told RTL Info that the consequences of the cyberattacks were “catastrophic,” forcing the store to throw out the entirety of its fresh and frozen products.
“We can’t have anything worse in our line of work,” he said. “We have to throw away all of our merchandise, and it’s both heartbreaking and very complicated operationally.”
A Delhaize spokesperson said it took steps to ensure stores remain stocked, although fresh and frozen products are “temporarily somewhat limited.””On Monday, 2 November, we identified an IT incident affecting the refrigeration systems in several dozen of our stores,” they said.”We immediately took the necessary measures to keep our stores operational and ensure that our customers can continue to do their shopping as usual.”In the affected stores, the range of fresh and frozen products is temporarily somewhat limited. Our distribution centres are operating normally, and there has been no disruption to deliveries to our stores.”We are, of course, continuing to ensure that our products are stored and presented under optimal conditions, so that we can provide our customers with the quality and freshness they have come to expect from us.”Around 15 Carrefour stores are also reportedly affected, as are sites operated by Intermarché, Spar, and Shop & Go stores located at Q8 service stations.Belgium’s De Laet & Van Haver chain of butcher shops reported temperature rises in its appliances too, but followed up with a statement on Monday saying there was no impact on its produce, and all stores remain open.Simultaneously, similar issues have affected Swedish grocery chain ICA, which confirmed attacks on a “small number of stores.”
“We can confirm that we have been informed of an incident overnight affecting a small number of ICA stores operating outside ICA’s central network,” a company spokesperson said. “The incident impacted the stores’ refrigeration and freezer systems. ICA is currently supporting the affected stores in managing the situation.”ICA did not respond to questions about the scale of food wastage nor when normal operations are expected to continue. One store, ICA Nära in Böda on Öland, said via social media that it is open today but has no fresh or frozen produce to sell.”Unfortunately, we are one of the stores whose refrigerators and freezers have been hacked,” it said. “We are open as usual, but unfortunately we have no refrigerators and freezers to sell. “We have no status on when the refrigerators and freezers are expected to be up and running again.”The store manager, Mats Olsson, told SVT that he arrived to work on Monday morning and was greeted by a puddle of water and freezers set to 55 degrees C – a tale echoed by other managers across the country.Coop stores are affected by similar attacks too, with six locations in central Sweden experiencing fridge-freezer issues, according to a company spokesperson.
Likewise, at least 13 SuperValue stores in Ireland are also affected, with fresh and frozen food being thrown out, according to parent company Musgrave speaking to RTE.The news comes less than a month after various grocery chains in France resorted to discarding bucketfuls of produce after their appliances were remotely defrosted by cybercrooks.Carrefour, Coopérative U, Intermarché, Monoprix, and others were hit with cyberattacks in mid-October, and hundreds of stores across the chains were reportedly impacted.At least some of the affected stores were running outdated firmware on their Danfoss refrigeration controllers, and shortly after the attacks were confirmed, CERT-FR published an alert pertaining to numerous Danfoss AK-SM and AK-SC controller compromises.Other retailers, such as Coopérative U, confirmed they were not Danfoss customers.It remains unclear if the latest attacks across Europe used the same methods as those used for the disruption in France last month.None of the companies that spoke to The Register on Monday responded to questions about who was behind the intrusions. ®
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