Hundreds of supermarkets in France have been hit by a cyber attack that caused refrigeration units to heat up, spoiling fresh and frozen food estimated to be worth millions of euros, the BBC reports.
Hackers are reported to have taken control of the software regulating the temperature of the units, forcing some of them to warm to 50C (120F) overnight.
Dominique Schelcher, chief executive of Coopérative U, called the incident “extremely serious and unprecedented”. According to AFP, more than 100 of the chain’s supermarkets were targeted, along with at least 300 stores run by Intermarché and its Netto brand.
Intermarché said its fridges reached 50C for six hours overnight into Monday, Reuters reported, and the retailer threw away all affected food to avoid health risks.
Some supermarket staff reportedly said they were met by waves of hot air when they opened freezer units on Monday morning. BFMTV published an image showing a freezer in an ice cream aisle displaying 26.5C, and said two supermarkets in the Alsace region reported combined losses of €270,000 (£228,000), meaning the nationwide total could run into the millions.
The Paris prosecutor’s office told AFP it had opened an investigation into what it called a “large-scale cyber-attack affecting the refrigerators of several major food retail chains across France”.
European Food Commissioner Christophe Hansen condemned the hack in a post on X, adding: “Food security requires more attention at all levels. Because the weaponisation of food has become a reality.”
The full scale of the attack is so far unclear. Reports in specialist retail and local media said stores from other food giants, including Carrefour, E.Leclerc and Monoprix, were also attacked. BBC News said it had approached the supermarket chains for comment.
In a post on X, Schelcher said staff were “fully mobilised, in co-ordination with refrigeration specialists, to restore the situation as quickly as possible”. He called for an investigation into the hack and said targeting equipment essential to the French food supply was “unacceptable”.
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