Cyberattack Heats French Supermarket Fridges to 122°F — SkimNews
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- Hackers targeted French supermarket chains including Carrefour, Monoprix, Intermarché, and Coopérative U, causing refrigerators and freezers to overheat to 50°C (122°F) overnight, spoiling food and producing smoke.
- Les Mousquetaires, parent of Intermarché, said damages across roughly 180 stores would reach "several million euros," with fresh and frozen food displays out of service and a court-appointed bailiff now assessing the losses.
- Coopérative U CEO Dominique Schelcher confirmed the cyberattacks hit "refrigeration production facilities of several stores," calling the incident "extremely serious and unprecedented."
- Sekoia analyst Felix Aime said the attack extended beyond France to Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany, and Belgium, suggesting a shared service-provider target rather than individual store breaches.
- European Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen condemned the attack on X, writing that "the weaponization of food has become a reality" and that food security requires more attention at all levels.
- Ahold Delhaize, parent of Stop & Shop and Albert Heijn, reported a separate "security issue within its network" and took systems offline, though its stores remained open.
Why it matters: Les Mousquetaires' refrigerated displays were compromised through one of its service providers managing refrigeration systems, not through the supermarkets' own networks, exposing a supply-chain vulnerability that hit roughly 180 stores and is now echoing across at least five other European countries. With damages already projected in the millions of euros and the EU's agriculture commissioner publicly framing the attack as "weaponization of food," the incident elevates IoT-managed physical infrastructure from an IT concern to a food-security concern with cross-border reach.
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