Cyberattack Causes Freezer Failures in Swedish and Belgian Supermarkets
A cyber incident disrupted refrigeration systems at stores in Sweden and Belgium, leading to temperatures above 50 °C and loss of food inventory worth millions of euros.
Supermarket freezers in Sweden and Belgium experienced sudden temperature spikes up to 55 °C on Monday, damaging food stocks valued in the millions of euros. The outage affected stores operated by Ica and Coop in Sweden and Ahold Delhaize locations in Belgium, as well as several Carrefour and Spar outlets.
Rickard Nilsson, head of an Ica store in Sjöbo, said staff could not control the refrigeration units and hot air was entering the freezers, resulting in extensive product loss. He told Aftonbladet, "We can’t adjust the temperatures, we can’t change them. Hot air is blowing into the freezers. Everything is ruined."
The incident follows similar attacks on French supermarkets earlier in the month, which are under investigation by French cybercrime authorities and the national cybersecurity agency Anssi. Many of the compromised refrigeration units run software from Danish industrial firm Danfoss. Claroty researchers previously identified multiple vulnerabilities in Danfoss systems, which the company said were patched after the flaws were disclosed.
Danfoss indicated that the affected units were operating with outdated firmware that no longer received security updates. Ahold Delhaize confirmed awareness of an IT incident affecting refrigeration systems in a number of its stores and said it was assessing the impact. The events highlight ongoing concerns among cybersecurity experts about the susceptibility of critical infrastructure, especially when legacy software and insufficient security measures are present.