A fresh wave of cyberattacks has hit Europe’s supermarket refrigerators, destroying food across countries

In Brief

A 2nd question of cyberattacks is suspected to person deed supermarket refrigerators crossed Europe, causing fridges to summation temperatures and spoil nutrient astatine dozens of stores crossed Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg and Sweden.

Supermarket giants Ahold Delhaize and Colruyt confirmed the hacks overnight, with 1 Belgian institution that operates Delhaize’s systems saying that the hackers had changed the settings to defrost, per Reuters. Stores person experienced dense nutrient losses from the cyberattacks, forcing supermarkets to propulsion retired goods that had defrosted oregon were different nary longer consumable.

The cyberattacks travel earlier refrigerator hacks crossed successful France past period that caused nutrient spoilage astatine hundreds of supermarkets by deliberately raising the somesthesia connected the units. Security researchers said that the origin of the hacks were internet-connected refrigerators made by Danish institution Danfoss, which was no longer providing information updates. Security institution Claroty warned backmost successful August that those refrigerator units were astatine hazard of distant hacks and outages.

The freezer hacks underscore however cyberattacks tin person real-world effects, including connected the nutrient proviso chain, often arsenic a effect of anemic oregon overlooked cybersecurity practices. In 2025, a cyberattack connected nutrient distributor elephantine UNFI resulted successful food shortages and bare shelves astatine market stores and supermarkets crossed the United States.

U.S. Department of Defense officials are reportedly investigating whether freezer units connected subject bases were hacked by Iran-backed hackers. Iranian hackers were besides blamed for cyberattacks targeting U.S. h2o providers earlier this year.

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