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Dozens of supermarkets in seven European countries were subjected to a suspected cyberattack that affected their refrigerators and freezers.
About 40 stores were affected in Belgium and Luxembourg, while a smaller number of stores were affected in Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands and Estonia.
The Belgian company SABCOBEL, which manufactures some of the affected refrigerators, said that its cooling evaporators switched to defrosting mode, which led to a rise in temperatures inside these units. It is believed that the same method was used in the attack that targeted hundreds of supermarkets in France last month.
According to local media reports, the authorities were forced to dispose of food supplies worth millions of euros.
Stephane Molins, CEO of SABCopil, which runs Delhaize systems, told the Belga news agency that the incident was a cyberattack and that the company was "working all night and morning to disconnect the affected units from the network."
He said that since the French attack in early October, the company had been working to "protect customers' refrigerators from this vulnerability," but the units needed manual adjustments, not just software updates.
He added: "The simplest solution is to control refrigerators via a secure Internet connection. Most of our customers switched to this after the attack in France."
It is unclear who is behind this attack. According to reports, the temperature of refrigerators in several stores across Europe rose to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
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For their part, national cybersecurity agencies in Belgium and Sweden announced that they are monitoring the incident.
The UK's National Cyber Security Center announced that it is working with international partners and industry to "fully understand the details of the incident." No incidents were reported in the UK.
In Flanders, Belgium, Delhaize's subsidiary told a news website it had lost €100,000 (£83,500) worth of products.
The manager said that this estimate did not take into account the additional losses that would result from closing the store.
The Carrefour supermarket chain, owned by a French company, said that the incident affected only 15 of its stores in Belgium, adding that immediate measures had been taken to ensure that all stores remained open.
A spokesman for the Colruyt Group, which runs Spar stores in Belgium, also told Reuters that cooling systems in five stores had been attacked.
Image source: AFP via Getty Images
The attack also affected stores in Ireland, the Netherlands and Estonia.
In Ireland, the holiday affected 13 branches of the Super Value chain of stores. A spokesman for the Musgrave Group, which owns the chain, confirmed to The Irish Times that a “cyber incident” had affected its refrigeration systems, but explained that the impact was limited to a “specific model” of refrigerators.
In the Netherlands, a spokesman for the Danish company Danfoss said that the cooling and freezing systems of at least 17 companies were attacked overnight, affecting meat shops and small stores in residential neighborhoods.
Additional reporting by Sheona McCallum.
We used artificial intelligence to help translate this article, which was originally written in English. This translation was reviewed by a BBC journalist before publication. More about how we use AI.
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