Around 40 Delhaize supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg, plus smaller numbers of shops in Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands and Estonia, had their fridges and freezers hit by a suspected cyber-attack on 2 November. The units were switched into defrost mode, pushing temperatures as high as 50C and forcing stores to throw away food, in some cases worth €100,000 or more per shop.
Likely the same method as the October attack on French supermarkets. Sabcobel, the Belgian manufacturer, says the vulnerability needs physical modifications, not just software updates.
Mitigation: managing units over a secure internet connection, which most customers switched to after the French incident.
Unknown so far: who is behind it. Belgian and Swedish cyber agencies are monitoring, and no UK incidents have been reported.
Brands named: Sabcobel (Delhaize’s systems), Danfoss (at least 17 Dutch businesses) and a “specific model” in Ireland’s SuperValu stores.
