Cyberattack Hits Hundreds of French Supermarkets; Hackers Raise Fridge Temperatures to 50°C
In a cyberattack on the cooling systems of French supermarkets, hackers managed to sharply raise the temperature of store fridges and freezers, leading to the spoilage of large amounts of food and fires in some stores.
In a cyber attack on the cooling systems of French supermarkets, hackers managed to drastically increase the temperature of refrigerators and freezers; An incident that led to the spoilage of a large amount of food and the occurrence of fire in some stores.
According to Ambassador Arjan's report, this attack targeted several large retail chains and raised serious concerns about the cyber security of the critical infrastructure of the food industry. Intermarche Company has announced that about 150 of its branches have been targeted by this attack. In these stores, the temperature of the cooling equipment reached 50 degrees Celsius for about six hours during the night; A temperature that makes it virtually impossible to safely store perishable food. As a result, all food items in the affected refrigerators and freezers were thrown away to avoid health hazards.
How was the attack on the cooling systems carried out?
Preliminary investigations show that the attackers have gained access to the remote control systems of the refrigeration equipment and by manipulating their operation, they have increased the temperature of the refrigerators and freezers. Rather than directly targeting cash registers or customer information, the attack disrupted the infrastructure necessary to store food and the day-to-day operations of stores.
According to published reports, this attack has been linked to vulnerabilities in cooling equipment control software of Danfoss, a Danish manufacturer of cooling management systems. The French National Agency for Cyber Security has identified this vulnerability during preliminary investigations. However, the full details of the infiltration method and the identity of the attackers have not yet been officially revealed.
In response to this incident, Danfoss announced that it is aware of the occurrence of security problems in a number of cooling management systems in France. According to the company, the affected devices were running older versions of the firmware. Danfoss also emphasized that it has repeatedly advised customers to upgrade their supported systems to the latest software version and to replace older equipment that no longer receives security updates with newer systems.
This issue once again shows that industrial equipment connected to the Internet can also be the target of cyber attacks. If control software is not updated or remote access is not properly secured, attackers may exploit security weaknesses to disrupt equipment.