Throwing away tons of food worth millions of euros - that's what happened yesterday in a large part of France, after more than 400 supermarkets fell victim to a cyberattack that caused their refrigeration systems to start a forced defrost.
Temperatures in refrigerators and freezers rose to between 50 and 80 degrees Celsius, and a number of supermarkets from the largest French chains such as Intermarché, Carrefour and Monoprix remained closed until they removed the spoiled goods.
The prosecutor's office has taken over the case itself, and the investigation has been taken over by the cybercrime department. So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the attack. According to initial reports, the hackers targeted a weak spot in the refrigeration software, which the chains failed to update in time.
Stores in Spain, Portugal, Germany and Belgium were also affected.
What is known?
According to the French television station BFMTV, the cyberattacks began on the night of October 11-12 and affected 300 stores of the Intermarché chain, nearly 100 of Coopérative U and thirty of Monoprix. Carrefour reported damage to 80 of its approximately 6,000 stores in the country.
“The attack probably started around 11 p.m., but we only noticed it at 4 a.m., when our supplier saw that the warehouse was flooded. The temperature in the cold room had risen to 50°C and had triggered an automatic sprinkler,“ says Charles Dezon, manager of one of the affected Intermarché stores.
In addition to defrosting the freezers, the hackers also extended the duration of the operation from one to eight hours to delay the alarms.
Although there is still no exact estimate of the losses across the country, according to experts and business representatives, they could reach tens of millions of euros.
The cyberattack in France affected the refrigeration systems of hundreds of stores of leading retail chains. Photo: Elsa Rancel/Ouest-France/PHOTOPQR/MAXPPP/IMAGO
Where was the weak point?
What the attacked supermarkets had in common was the software they used to manage their refrigeration systems. It was developed by the Danish company Danfoss, and cyberattacks were possible in sites where software updates had not been made, despite warnings from the company.
“The majority of the affected devices have reached the end of their life cycle and no longer receive software support”, the company explained to Le Monde, adding that “they have long recommended that their customers update outdated versions” of the product.
French media recall that in March 2025, Danfoss announced discovered security flaws in the software and urged its customers to install the necessary updates.
However, cyberattacks against supermarkets are not isolated. In, the French businessman and group manager behind Intermarché Thierry Cotillard says that his company employs 12 cybersecurity experts who prevent between 3 and 4 cyberattacks a day.
A way of political destabilization
European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Christoph Hansen condemned the hacker attack on the X platform and called for greater attention to “food security“, as “the use of food as a tool has become a reality“.
According to Thierry Cotillard, such attacks pursue not only economic but also political goals: “In the current geopolitical context, this is a way of political destabilization. Imagine if France couldn't provide food supplies - that would be a disaster," he says.
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Source: www.dw.com