LONDON (AP) — Mysterious cyberattacks on European supermarket refrigerators have left officials across the continent scrambling to understand the cold, hard facts.
Supermarkets in several European countries reported this week that their refrigerators and freezers heated up after being picked up remotely, resulting in tons of spoiled food at a total cost of millions of dollars (euros).
A Swedish supermarket said its refrigerators and freezers had been hacked and set to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
It is a repetition of a previous incident which hit the refrigeration systems of hundreds of supermarkets and independent stores in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Here’s a closer look:
What happened and who was affected
Supermarkets in at least half a dozen European countries, including Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, Italy and Estonia, reported problems Monday.
It wasn’t just the big chains.
The owner of a butcher shop in Athens told Greek private television Skai on Tuesday that someone had hacked the temperature control of a refrigeration unit, raising the temperature to 150 degrees Celsius (302 degrees Fahrenheit).
George Boubas said his employees who started their shift at 4 a.m. at the store in suburban Kifisia were the first to notice the problem. It took a technician two hours to regain control of the unit’s temperature settings, although meat products were not affected, he said.
Boubas said the technician told him that a supermarket in the area and a fast-food restaurant were experiencing the same problem.
He said they decided to cut off the Wi-Fi connection to the refrigeration units to restrict access to the outdoors.
Experts said the cyberattacks are a reminder of the risks that arise as more and more things connect to the Internet.
“This attack is a wake-up call. We have filled our homes and stores with devices that are very small computers, and yet we still treat them like ordinary devices,” said Katerina Mitrokotsa, a cybersecurity professor at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
“A refrigerator doesn’t pose a security risk, and that’s exactly why attackers like it. »
Refrigerators are connected to save money and reduce waste
This cyberattack echoes that which occurred a few weeks earlier and which mainly affected French and Dutch retailers.
French cybersecurity investigators blamed the problems on outdated remote control modules manufactured by Danish company Danfoss as well as American company Copeland. Danfoss said the most affected systems were older products that were no longer receiving software or security updates, while Copeland identified a vulnerability in abandoned controllers.
“Supermarkets are connecting their refrigerators to be able to monitor temperatures 24 hours a day in hundreds of stores, receive alerts before food spoils, reduce energy costs and allow technicians to repair faults remotely,” Mitrokotsa said.
“This saves money and reduces food waste, but each connected refrigerator is also an entry point that must be secured like any other IT system.”
Experts said many businesses are rushing to adopt hot new technologies while neglecting the vast network of connections they rely on for daily operations, from payment and ordering systems to warehouses, refrigeration and other building controls.
“Organizations are dedicating budgets to AI and digital transformation, while the systems that keep food cold, water clean and lights on often run on hardware that hasn’t been funded since installation,” said Nicole Carignan, senior vice president of AI security and strategy at cybersecurity firm Darktrace.
“No one has broken into these refrigeration systems with a zero day,” she said, using a term for a flaw that went undetected by the system’s creators and security reviews. “They got in via internet-connected controllers, end-of-life firmware, and default passwords. It’s technical debt that’s coming due.”
UK Cybersecurity On Tuesday, officials shed little light on the latest attack, while pointing to what they called “legacy technology.”
“The cyberattack on French supermarkets was the result of the exploitation of known vulnerabilities,” British cybersecurity minister Liz Lloyd said in a speech. “This clearly demonstrates that poor cybersecurity hygiene, such as weak passwords, continues to put organizations at risk.”
Richard Horne, director of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, told reporters that French fridges were “directly connected to the internet with default passwords”.
A team from the center issued warnings and worked through Monday night contacting organizations that had “vulnerable technologies exposed,” he said.
No evidence so far that AI was involved
Advanced artificial intelligence systems from companies like Anthropic and OpenAI have recently come under fire after a series of revelations that they hacked organizations while escaping human control.
Experts said Tuesday, however, that they do not believe these attacks were powered by AI.
“There is no evidence that AI was used, and the techniques did not require it,” Carignan said.
“I think the key thing is that this was not an AI attack,” said Paul Chichester, director of operations at the UK cyber centre. “It uses vulnerabilities that have been around for a long time. And that’s what we really need to focus on.”
Who is behind this and what is the motive?
Investigations have so far failed to uncover who might have carried out the cyberattacks and why.
The national cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, said it had been investigating flaws in refrigeration systems since mid-October and coordinating protective measures with “all sectors that could be affected.”
In a statement to The Associated Press, the agency said it was aware of compromised remote refrigeration controllers in Danfoss’ AK-SM and AK-SC lines, as well as xweb systems from Copeland and Dixell.
ANSSI says it is mobilized to help “potential victims in France” and recalls a security alert published for the first time on October 12 and regularly updated.
Italian cybersecurity and intelligence officials were due to meet Tuesday morning to discuss the incident, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
Officials from the European Union’s Executive Commission also held similar meetings.
European Commission spokesman Thomas Régnier declined Tuesday to comment on the identity of the author of the hacks, saying it was up to the bloc’s 27 national authorities to determine.
Regnier told reporters that the incidents “are not isolated” and that Europeans “must be collectively resilient and prepared for such cyber incidents.”
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Hadjicostis was reported in Nicosia, Cyprus. AP writers Lorne Cook in Brussels, Lefteris Pitarakis in Athens and Thomas Adamson in Paris contributed to this report.
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