Suspected hack heats supermarket fridges in Belgium and Sweden

A suspected cyberattack has pushed supermarket fridge and freezer temperatures to 50 °C or more, forcing stores in Belgium and Sweden to throw away food. Belgian reports say around 40 Delhaize, 15 Carrefour and five Spar stores were hit.

Hackers remotely switched on the built-in defrost mode in the units, overriding the set temperature and defrost time. Stephan Moelans, CEO of refrigeration installer Sabcobel, said the Belgian attack uses exactly the same mechanism as the one that hit hundreds of French supermarkets in October.

Moelans said a software update alone will not fix the flaw, and that physical changes to the units are required. In the meantime, the simplest step is managing the fridges over a secure internet connection, which most of Sabcobel's customers adopted after the French attack. Sabcobel knows of around 20 affected units out of the hundreds it manages in Belgium.

Second incident in weeks

In Sweden, ICA Kvantum in Sjöbo said hackers had broken into its cooling systems and set its fridges and freezers to 50 °C. A freezer at an ICA Nära store in Böda, on Öland, showed 55 °C. The Sjöbo store closed for the morning and reopened later. Coop reported similar problems at six stores in central Sweden. ICA said only a limited number of its stores were affected and did not confirm that hackers were responsible.

The Belgian and Swedish incidents come just weeks after the French attack. Neither ICA nor Coop has explained what caused the failures or whether the affected stores used the same refrigeration systems. Stores are still investigating and discarding stock.