Hackers crank European supermarket fridges to 122 degrees, mimicking unexplained U.S. military meltdowns

(Daily Caller News Foundation) – A cyberattack that cooked the food inside hundreds of European grocery coolers seemingly resembles an unexplained U.S. military commissary meltdown.

Attackers remotely pushed fridge and freezer temperatures at hundreds of French supermarkets as high as 122 degrees Fahrenheit overnight Sunday, Reuters reported. The incident resembles refrigeration outages that may have hit about a dozen U.S. military commissaries in August.

“Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is of extreme gravity and is unprecedented. It is unacceptable,” Coopérative U CEO Dominique Schelcher said in a Monday X post, confirming that his supermarket chain’s stores were among those targeted in the attack.

The “large scale” attack that spoiled food and led to fires “[affected] connected refrigerators in several major food retailers across France,” the Paris prosecutor’s office said Monday, Reuters reported.

The National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) of France, at the direction of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecournu, traced the attack to a Danfoss software vulnerability, Reuters reported. The cyberattack also reached stores in Belgium, Germany, Poland, Portugal and Spain, Felix Aime, a senior cyber threat.

Danfoss, a Danish refrigeration company, said the compromised systems were running outdated firmware and previously urged customers to update older equipment, Reuters reported.

“We are working with affected customers to implement appropriate mitigation measures, including firmware updates where available, stronger network protections and removing direct internet exposure where applicable,” Danfoss said in a statement to the Cooling Post. Around 500 stores were harmed by the attack based on reported incidents.

Danfoss and ANSSI each did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Similarly, several U.S. military commissaries experienced refrigeration cooling failures in August, including Fort Irwin, Fort Huachuca, Naval Station Newport and Travis Air Force Base, Stars and Stripes reported.

Army and Air Force criminal investigators confirmed probes into the commissary outages, according to Stars and Stripes. The Defense Department only confirmed a “possible refrigeration disruption.”

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Researchers at cybersecurity firm Claroty found in August that more than 2,700 Danfoss systems that run supermarkets’ refrigeration could be reached directly from the open internet.

This will cost France “[t]ens of millions of euros,” Thierry Cotillard, president of the Les Mousquetaires group, which owns Intermarche, said in a Monday interview with BFMTV shared on X.

(Image credit: Adobe Stock/monticellllo)