European supermarkets hit by cyberattacks on refrigeration systems, prompting emergency meeting in Italy

Italy’s government convened an emergency meeting with intelligence chiefs and the National Cyber Security Agency after cyberattacks disrupted supermarket refrigeration systems in at least 11 European nations. The incidents forced supermarkets in countries including Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Romania to discard perishable goods as temperatures rose in freezers and fridges.

Italian officials said the impact was limited to outlets with outdated security systems, with around 20 stores reported affected nationwide. Giuseppe Spadaro, director of a Coop supermarket group in Sicily, said four of its 300 stores were hit and that the stores had to discard all products, leaving shelves empty.

EU spokesperson Thomas Regnier said EU agencies were cooperating with national authorities on a collective response, emphasizing the need for resilience against such incidents. EU food and agriculture commissioner Christophe Hansen described the attacks as a deliberate attempt to disrupt the food supply chain.

Romania’s National Cyber Security Directorate chief Dan Cimpean characterized the attacks as “semi-amateurish” and said there was no indication of a state actor. In the United Kingdom, National Cyber Security Centre chief Richard Horne told the BBC that the attacks affected the whole food supply chain and involved exploitation of vulnerable technology.

Four German stores and seven Swedish Coop outlets were among those affected; the Swedish sites were restored after the equipment, which had been connected via old 4G mobile networks, was secured. Belgium opened a criminal investigation, and hundreds of French supermarkets were hit by a similar attack the previous month. Research by security firm Forescout noted that nearly 13,000 refrigeration control services are openly reachable online across 99 countries.