Supermarket chain Ahold Delhaize in the Netherlands told NBC News on Monday that it was aware of a “computer incident” affecting the refrigeration systems in several of its stores. “Our teams are working hard to fully assess the situation,” the company said in an email.
Stephan Moelans, CEO of Belgian refrigeration company Sabcobel, which operates Delhaize’s systems, told the Belga news agency that it was a cyberattack in which the units’ evaporators were put into defrost mode.
A spokesman for the Colruyt group, which operates Spar stores in Belgium under a franchise system, said five stores had had their refrigeration systems attacked. The country’s Carrefour supermarket chain said a “cyberattack targeting refrigeration facilities had extremely limited impact”, affecting 15 of its more than 700 stores.
Swedish grocery chain ICA told NBC News that its systems were not affected, but that it had been informed of “an incident in a small number of stores that use an external provider and have their connectivity outside of ICA’s core network.”
The incident affected the stores’ refrigeration and freezing systems, the company said in an email. “ICA is currently supporting the affected stores in handling the incident,” the statement said.
The ICA Kvantum branch in Sjöbo, southern Sweden, wrote on its Facebook page that its refrigerators and freezers had been hacked and set to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. He said he was working to throw out the affected items.
Private food retail group Coop told Swedish daily Aftonbladet that six of its stores had been hit by similar incidents.
In Ireland, food wholesaler Musgrave said a cyber incident had affected the refrigeration systems at 13 of its SuperValu stores, forcing it to withdraw some chilled and frozen products from sale.
“Our monitoring systems alerted us to the problem and we took immediate action,” he said in a statement. “Our investigation is ongoing.” The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
In Estonia, a company that makes the affected technology said one of its customers was hit by a cyberattack in which attackers accessed a computer controlling refrigeration and also raised the temperature to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, public broadcaster ERR reported.
From refrigerators and heating systems to security cameras and alarm networks, a growing range of devices can now be monitored and controlled remotely, creating new opportunities for cybercriminals.
Sweden’s national cybersecurity center – which said it could not speculate on who was responsible for the attacks – is working on several incidents affecting grocery stores across the country, the center’s director, John Billow, said Monday.
“In recent weeks we have identified that we have a large number of operational technology devices exposed in Sweden and have clearly indicated the need to update or patch them,” said Billow of the cybersecurity center.
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