Hackers have attacked refrigeration and freezer systems in supermarkets in Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg and Estonia. As a result of settings being changed remotely, temperatures at some locations rose sharply, and several retail chains withdrew chilled and frozen products from sale.
In Ireland, 13 of the 223 stores belonging to the country’s third-largest supermarket chain, SuperValu, were affected. The company said that the incident was limited to a specific model of refrigeration equipment and that products considered potentially affected had been removed from its stores.
Several incidents were recorded at ICA and Coop stores in Sweden. At one location, the temperature of a freezer reached 50 degrees Celsius. “We know that a limited number of stores were affected by an incident overnight that impacted their refrigeration and freezer systems,” an ICA spokesperson said.
Stores in five countries affected
Sweden’s cybersecurity centre is investigating what happened. Its head, Jon Bildou, said that in recent weeks numerous operational technology devices accessible from the internet had been identified, many of which had long needed to be updated or patched.
Dozens of Ahold Delhaize stores in Belgium and Luxembourg were affected, while five Spar stores in Belgium reported problems with their refrigeration systems. Stefan Moulans, director of Belgian refrigeration installation company Sabcobel, confirmed that the incident was a cyberattack. According to him, the systems had been switched to defrost mode.
An unnamed supermarket chain was affected in Estonia. Technology provider Kitman Coldtech told public broadcaster ERR that the temperatures in some of the equipment had been set to 50 degrees Celsius.
Attacks follow incident in France
The new series of incidents comes less than a month after a large-scale attack in France. At the time, around 150 Intermarche stores were affected, while problems were also reported at other major chains. Temperatures in some refrigerators rose to 50 degrees Celsius, leading to the disposal of large quantities of fresh and frozen food.
French prosecutors launched an investigation after fires were reported in addition to the destroyed food supplies. Attention is focused on refrigeration equipment control systems that can be monitored and operated remotely. Manufacturer Danfoss said that some of the devices in use were older models that no longer receive software or security updates.
So far, no one has publicly claimed responsibility for the attacks, and it has not been confirmed whether the incidents in the individual countries were carried out by the same group. Connecting refrigeration systems to the internet makes remote monitoring easier, but at the same time creates the possibility that a technical problem or breach could result in real food losses and interrupt the operation of stores.
Sources: news.sky.com, thejournal.ie