The key facts

  • On November 2, the Ahold Delhaize and Colruyt chains reported hacks at dozens of stores in Belgium and Luxembourg
  • In Sweden, freezers at ICA and Coop switched into defrost mode with a temperature of 50°C, and food products spoiled
  • A similar incident affected one of Estonia's chains; the October attacks were carried out by hackers in France

A new wave of attacks on refrigeration equipment

European supermarket chains reported new hacker attacks on November 2, in which refrigeration equipment was switched into defrost mode. As Kun.uz reports, citing Reuters, the management of Ahold Delhaize and Colruyt stated that the attack affected several dozen stores in Belgium and Luxembourg. Sabcobel, the company responsible for refrigeration equipment at Ahold Delhaize, told the Belgian agency Belga that it was a hacker attack. Colruyt, which operates Spar stores in Belgium, specified that refrigerators broke down in five stores.

Sweden and Estonia

According to Swedish Yle, which the publication cites, the ICA supermarket chain also reported malfunctions in its freezers: they switched into defrost mode with a temperature of 50°C, causing a large amount of food to spoil. According to the newspaper Aftonbladet, a similar problem was observed in six Coop Group stores in central Sweden. In addition, according to Reuters, a similar problem affected one of Estonia's supermarket chains — its name and other details have not been disclosed. Law enforcement agencies in European countries have not yet reported who is behind the attacks.

A repeat of the October attacks

This is not the first such incident: in October, hackers illegally interfered with the refrigeration equipment of several hundred supermarkets belonging to various chains in France, also switching the freezers into heating mode up to 50°C. At that time, Ahold Delhaize, which also owns supermarkets in the Netherlands, reported malfunctions in its app. Thus, the November attack has already affected several countries — Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden and Estonia — but the scale and perpetrators of the new hacks remain unknown.