Supermarket fridge cyberattack spreads from France to Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden
Hackers remotely forced refrigeration units into defrost mode at Ahold Delhaize, Carrefour and Spar stores, echoing an October attack in France.
What to know
- An 'IT incident' hit fridges and freezers at dozens of Ahold Delhaize-linked supermarkets (Delhaize, Carrefour, Spar) in Belgium and Luxembourg on 2 November, using the same evaporator-defrost method as an October attack on hundreds of French stores.
- Swedish supermarkets reported similar refrigeration disruption the same day, indicating the campaign is not limited to one country.
- Fixing the vulnerability reportedly requires physical modifications to the units, not just software patches, according to the official managing the response.
- Coverage is drawing broader attention to how internet-connected appliances, routers and vehicles create new attack surfaces beyond traditional IT systems.
“Personally, I've been awake since 2 am. We've been working all night and morning to disconnect the affected units from the network.”
Moelans, Official overseeing refrigeration response · BelgaShare.be ↗ · Nov 1
Ahold Delhaize Affected supermarket groupMoelans Spokesperson managing the Belgian refrigeration responseCarrefour Affected supermarket chainSpar Affected supermarket chain
How it unfolded 4 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlesvideosposts
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4
FT broadcasts short segment on the fridge-hacking story
The Financial Times aired a short video segment flagging supermarket fridges as hackers' new target, pointing viewers to further FT coverage.
“Hackers have found a new target: supermarket fridges.”
— Financial Times -
first by The Independent, 8d ago
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The fix is really not that hard. No over the air firmware updates (use usb/memory stick/etc). And have the WiFi/bluetooth chip have a one way connection to the control chip. So it can get reports, but not communicate or control the master chip. That means no editing of settings, and no “fun” updates. But who really needs to do that over there…
2 more of the top 3 · 4 posts in this stretch
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Good point. According to Reddit, the US could magically fix all its problems if every citizen across all 50 states somehow simultaneously organized a revolution because the French did it a few times throughout history.
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I can see the use case for groceries who need to monitor the fridges to make sure they are operational, but they should either be not accessible from the outside Internet of course, which these were.
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Swedish supermarkets report similar refrigeration disruption
Several supermarkets in Sweden also reported on the same Monday that a cyberattack had disrupted their refrigeration systems, according to Aftonbladet.
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first by BelgaShare.be, 8d ago
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Ahold Delhaize's Belgium and Luxembourg fridges hit by new 'IT incident'
Fridges and freezers at dozens of Ahold Delhaize supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg, including Delhaize, Carrefour and Spar outlets, were remotely forced into defrost mode, using the same mechanism as the French attack; technicians were mobilised from 1am to disconnect affected units.
“We began mobilising technicians at 1 am to get the situation under control.”
— Moelans -
1
Reuters explainer surveys how vulnerable connected devices really are
An explainer piece reviewed past IoT hacking incidents — a 2015 Samsung fridge demonstration, the 2015 Jeep remote-hijack recall, and a Kia vehicle-tracking flaw — to contextualize how hackers could exploit connected appliances and routers.
“In theory, yes. If a device is connected to the internet, directly or through an app, cloud service or home network, it can potentially be hacked.”
— Reuters -
first by Investing.com News, 9d ago · also Reuters
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background
Ahold Delhaize reports an earlier cybersecurity incident to Dutch police — The retailer reported a cybersecurity incident to Dutch police in October, coinciding with the France attack, though details were limited at the time.
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background
Cyberattack hits hundreds of French supermarkets' refrigeration systems — A cyberattack caused refrigerators and freezers at hundreds of French stores to heat to about 50°C (122°F) overnight, sparking fires and spoiling food.
Also covered reported alongside — the timeline has no entry for these yet
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first by WIRED, 3d ago · also The Atlantic
1 more headline
- Why Is Everyone Connecting Fridges to the Internet? The Atlantic · 2d ago
and 3 smaller pieces
What people are saying 1 voices from 1 site · best of 4 · verbatim
- Nov 8
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and they should have done it after the first hacking report! I bet there are still wide open systems out there