Hundreds of French supermarkets hit by cyberattack on refrigerators

The attackers remotely altered the settings of equipment manufactured by the Danish company Danfoss, switching the units into defrost mode with temperatures raised to 50 °C for up to six hours. This led to food spoilage, forcing retail chains to dispose of products, as well as to localized fires.

Stores belonging to several major retail chains across the country were affected. Les Mousquetaires, owner of the Intermarché chain, reported disruptions at around 150 stores (the France24 TV channel cited an estimate of up to 200). Around 100 retail outlets were affected in the Coopérative U chain, while retailer Carrefour reported an attack on 80 stores out of roughly 6,000. The Paris prosecutor's office is examining the scale of the incident, as well as the link between the cyberattack, food losses, and fire outbreaks.

The French computer emergency response team CERT-FR issued an alert warning about the compromise of Danfoss AK-SM and AK-SC series controllers, noting that exposing the management interface to the internet is unacceptable. Manufacturer Danfoss said that the affected systems were running outdated software. On instructions from French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, the ANSSI agency joined the investigation and is also coordinating actions with European partners.