Hackers remotely raised refrigerator and freezer temperatures inside hundreds of French supermarkets to as high as 50 degrees Celsius overnight, spoiling food, triggering fires, and forcing stores to discard entire inventories of fresh and frozen products.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said a ‘large-scale’ attack targeted connected refrigerators at several major food retailers across France, causing food losses and fires. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has instructed France’s National Cybersecurity Agency, ANSSI, to investigate.
The attack unfolded during the night of Sunday, October 11, into Monday morning. Retailers discovered the breach when staff arrived to find refrigeration units running in forced defrost mode at temperatures far above safe levels.
Retailers Report Widespread Impact
Les Mousquetaires, which owns the Intermarche chain, said approximately 300 of its stores under the Intermarche and Netto banners were affected. Refrigerators at around 150 of those locations were heated to 50 degrees Celsius for roughly six hours.
A spokesperson said all affected food was discarded to eliminate health risks. Thierry Cotillard, chief executive of Intermarche, told BFM TV the attack would cause losses of ‘tens of millions of euros nationwide in a single day.’
Cooperative U chief executive Dominique Schelcher confirmed his group was also targeted, with fewer than one hundred stores affected.
‘Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is of extreme gravity and is unprecedented,’ Schelcher wrote on X.
Carrefour said 80 of its supermarkets were hit. Monoprix, which operates about 490 stores in France, said 5 percent of its locations were affected. E.Leclerc confirmed that a cyberattack affected one of its refrigeration equipment suppliers, resulting in operational disruptions at several stores.
Vulnerability Linked to Danish Supplier
A source close to the prime minister said ANSSI identified a vulnerability in software supplied by Danish company Danfoss, a major manufacturer of refrigeration controllers used by supermarkets across France.
Danfoss said it was ‘aware of incidents in France affecting a limited number of refrigeration management systems.’ The company stated that affected units ‘were running outdated firmware’ and that it had ‘long advised customers to keep supported systems updated with the latest firmware and to migrate legacy systems to current-generation solutions.’
On August 9, cybersecurity firm Claroty’s Team82 published research detailing vulnerabilities in the Danfoss AK-SM 800A controller. The report identified issues that could have allowed attackers to bypass authentication controls and execute code on compromised devices.
Ethical hacker Baptiste Robert reported finding 2,752 Danfoss systems accessible from the internet worldwide, with 1,590 located in France.
European Coordination and Broader Concerns
Felix Aime, a senior cyber threat intelligence analyst at Sekoia Threat Detection and Research, said Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany, and Belgium had also been affected.
The source close to Lecornu said France was coordinating with European counterparts because other countries could also be affected, and authorities were assessing whether other French companies were at risk.
Christel Delberghe, director general of the European retail association Eurocommerce, said, ‘This incident underlines the importance of resilience across the entire supply chain.’
Christophe Hansen, the European Union’s commissioner for agriculture and food, condemned the attack on social media, writing that ‘food security requires more attention at all levels’ and describing the exploitation of food as now a ‘reality.’
Similar Incidents Abroad
The attacks resemble disruptions reported at about a dozen US military commissaries in late August that led to food losses after refrigeration systems were affected.
In May, an Israeli food processing plant experienced a similar attack in which refrigeration system controllers were reprogrammed to cause drastic temperature increases.
The French retail association Federation du Commerce et de la Distribution called on Danfoss for ‘full transparency’ about the incident. The FCD said some stores were already back up and running.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said the investigation, entrusted to the Office for the Fight against Cybercrime, will aim to identify victims and establish links between the attack and reported damage, including food losses and fires.
Intermarché said its affected stores were forced to throw away all fresh and frozen products. The company warned that insurance policies may not cover this type of incident. A store manager in Haguenau, near the German border, estimated losses at her location alone at approximately 50,000 euros.
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Danfoss sold a 500 million euro bond on Monday that drew more than 3 billion euros in investor bids.
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