A cyberattack on French supermarkets drove refrigerator temperatures as high as 80 degrees Celsius, forcing stores to dump large volumes of food. Several hundred outlets were affected.
Large-scale attacks targeting the refrigeration and freezing systems of supermarkets run by major French retailers, including Intermarche, Cooperative U and Monoprix, took place between the night of the 12th and the early hours of the 13th, AFP and Le Monde reported on the 14th.
According to BFM TV, the hackers remotely manipulated the defrost function of the refrigeration systems, raising fridge temperatures to 50 C for several hours. They also extended the defrost cycle from one hour to eight hours so that alarms would sound only belatedly.
As a result, staff at some stores learned of the damage only after arriving for work. Hot air poured out when they opened refrigerator and freezer doors, and with the cooling functions rendered useless, all fresh and frozen food in storage had to be discarded.
Charles Dejean, who runs an Intermarche store in Gradignan in the southwestern Gironde department, told Le Monde that the attack appeared to have begun around 11 p.m. but was not noticed until 4 a.m., and that the temperature in the cold storage room climbed to 50 C, triggering the automatic sprinkler system. Dejean said the store suffered losses of 21,000 euros (about 31 million won) based on purchase prices.
Another Intermarche store in La Haye in the northwestern Manche department said on Facebook that its refrigerator temperature rose to 80 C and that the equipment melted. Fires also broke out at some stores, according to reports.
More than 500 stores were affected in total, including about 300 Intermarche outlets, about 100 Cooperative U outlets, 80 Carrefour stores, about 30 Monoprix stores and several E.Leclerc outlets. Damages are estimated at anywhere from several million to several tens of millions of euros.
The hackers exploited a security vulnerability in refrigeration control software supplied to the retailers by Danish company Danfoss. In a statement, Danfoss said most of the affected devices were older products that had reached the end of their service life and no longer received software or security updates, adding that it had long advised customers to update system firmware and replace aging systems.