Fridges reach 50°C as cyberattack hits hundreds of French supermarkets

• A cyberattack disrupted refrigeration at hundreds of French supermarkets, with temperatures reportedly reaching 50°C, destroying food stocks and causing fires

• Major retailers reported widespread damage, with Intermarche’s chief estimating nationwide losses of tens of millions of euros in one day

• Intermarche, Cooperative U and Carrefour were among the chains affected, forcing stores to discard fresh and frozen food

A cyberattack on refrigeration systems at hundreds of supermarkets across France has destroyed fresh and frozen food and caused fires at several stores, with temperatures in some fridges and freezers reportedly climbing to 50°C.

Major grocery chains, including Intermarche, Cooperative U and E Leclerc, confirmed the disruption on Monday. French authorities have launched an investigation into what retailers described as an unprecedented attack on equipment essential to keeping food safe.

Intermarche said at least 300 stores across its own network and its Netto brand had been targeted. More than 100 Cooperative U outlets were affected, while Carrefour reported incidents at 80 supermarkets.

Monoprix said around 5 per cent of its approximately 490 stores had been hit. E Leclerc also confirmed that several of its outlets were targeted.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said the large-scale attack had affected internet-connected refrigerators across several major food retailers, resulting in food losses and fires.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu directed France’s National Cybersecurity Agency, ANSSI, to investigate, a source in his office told Reuters. France was also coordinating with European counterparts amid concerns that the disruption could extend beyond its borders. Authorities were assessing whether other French businesses faced similar risks.

Although no industry-wide damage estimate was immediately available, Intermarche chief executive Thierry Cotillard told BFM TV that losses across the country could reach tens of millions of euros in a single day.

According to BFM TV, attackers remotely activated forced defrosting in refrigeration systems at numerous stores, destroying stocks of chilled and frozen products. Intermarche told AFP that affected outlets would have to discard all their fresh and frozen goods.

Cooperative U chief executive Dominique Schelcher said refrigeration systems had been disrupted since Sunday night. In a post on X, he condemned the targeting of equipment crucial to preserving food and maintaining supplies, and said teams were working to restore operations as quickly as possible.

He also called for an investigation to establish how the attack had happened.

Supermarket refrigeration is commonly managed through control panels overseeing a store’s fridges and freezers. Internet access allows maintenance providers to monitor and adjust the equipment remotely.

The source close to Lecornu told Reuters that ANSSI had identified a vulnerability in software supplied by Danish company Danfoss.

Danfoss said it was aware of incidents affecting a limited number of refrigeration management systems in France. According to the company, the affected units were operating with outdated firmware. It said customers had long been advised to update their systems and replace older equipment.

The incident followed research published by cybersecurity firm Claroty on 9 August outlining vulnerabilities in Danfoss systems that could enable attackers to bypass authentication.

France’s retail federation, the FCD, demanded full transparency from Danfoss. It said some affected supermarkets had already resumed operations.

The extent of the disruption elsewhere in Europe remained unclear. Felix Aime, a senior cyberthreat intelligence analyst at Sekoia Threat Detection and Research, told Reuters that Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium had also been affected.

The attack bears similarities to refrigeration disruptions reported at around a dozen US military commissaries in late August, where equipment failures also caused food losses. No connection between those incidents and the attack in France was established in the information available.

With agency inputs