Cyberattacks Manipulate Supermarket Refrigeration Controls, Spoiling Food Across France

Cyberattacks compromised remote refrigeration controls at hundreds of French supermarkets, changing temperature and defrost settings and reportedly causing tens of millions of euros in losses. During the night of October 11–12, 2026, some refrigerators and freezers reached temperatures of up to 50°C for hours, spoiling fresh and frozen food and causing small fires at some locations. Affected chains included Intermarché, Netto, Coopérative U, Carrefour, Monoprix and E.Leclerc. An October 13 official update confirmed compromises involving Danfoss, Copeland and Dixell controllers and warned that the campaigns were probably still active. Similar attacks were reported in Belgium, Sweden, Ireland and Estonia, with suspected comparable incidents in Finland; no perpetrators have been publicly identified.

Affected retailers withdrew products whose safe preservation could not be guaranteed, disconnected equipment from the internet and worked with refrigeration specialists to restore operations. Finland’s Traficom reported that affected equipment had reached end of life and that a vulnerability discovered in 2025 had no available fix, but did not identify the flaw or establish the initial access method. CERT-FR and Traficom urged operators to remove direct internet exposure, isolate IoT and OT networks, secure remote access, restore and reconfigure compromised controllers, change default passwords, update supported firmware and replace unsupported equipment. Traficom also highlighted the EU Cyber Resilience Act’s manufacturer obligations, with essential cybersecurity requirements applying to products first placed on the EU market from December 11, 2027.