Cyberattacks on European refrigeration systems threaten food security

Suspected cyberattacks targeting industrial refrigeration systems have spread across at least 10 European countries, forcing supermarkets and food producers to discard large quantities of spoiled goods after hackers remotely manipulated temperature controls, EU officials and national authorities said Tuesday.

Germany and Greece report temperature manipulation

Overnight attacks in Germany affected CAP supermarkets across North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria, with hackers switching refrigeration units from cooling to heating modes, broadcaster Tagesschau reported Tuesday. A regional manager at the Workers’ Welfare Association confirmed the incident to the German Press Agency, noting that refrigerated shelves and external storage areas were compromised after attackers targeted the company responsible for remote maintenance. Police in Lower Bavaria were separately investigating an incident at an Edeka branch in Reisbach involving suspected data espionage and manipulation.

In Athens’ Kifisia district, hackers accessed a butcher shop’s refrigeration control system and set temperatures to 150 degrees Celsius (302 degrees Fahrenheit), destroying inventory, according to the daily Capital. “They had set the refrigerators to 150 degrees Celsius, we could not manually intervene as we could not access the system,” owner Giorgos Boumpas said, adding that a technician required two hours to restore control and reported similar incidents at two nearby businesses. The shop subsequently disabled its Wi-Fi connection to prevent further breaches.

Italy probes incidents as Nordic retailers targeted

Italian authorities launched an investigation Tuesday after supermarket refrigeration failures caused food to spoil across multiple regions, Italian news agency ANSA reported. Retailer Conad confirmed five affected stores in Veneto and Sicily, while technical teams intervened to limit losses following emergency talks between government officials and the National Cybersecurity Agency. Italy’s Postal Police opened a formal investigation into the breaches, which officials said exploited vulnerabilities in outdated equipment.

Monday’s disruptions affected businesses in Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland, Denmark, Estonia and Luxembourg, while Finnish retailers investigated potential links between temperature irregularities and malicious activity. Several ICA and Coop stores in Sweden reported freezers reaching 55 degrees Celsius (131 degrees Fahrenheit), with ICA stating affected connections operated outside its central network. In Belgium, Delhaize, Carrefour and Spar supermarkets suffered attacks that prosecutors labeled criminal, with one shopkeeper estimating losses exceeding €60,000 ($67,000).

Engineering firm Danfoss reported that at least 17 Dutch businesses were targeted through systems using default passwords on unsecured networks, while Irish retailer SuperValu confirmed 13 affected stores and Estonian supermarket Selver reported hackers changing freezer temperatures via compromised control computers. Danish food producers also detected intrusion attempts, though suppliers intervened to halt the attacks, the Confederation of Danish Industry told DR. The UK meat processing industry reported similar cyberattacks earlier, security officials confirmed.

EU warns of deliberate food security threat

EU Agriculture and Food Commissioner Christophe Hansen described the attacks as a deliberate attempt to disrupt European food security, Danish broadcaster DR reported. He stated that food security was not currently at risk but urged coordinated efforts to strengthen supply-chain resilience across member states.

Forensic examinations of the compromised networks continued Wednesday, with cybersecurity experts noting that many affected systems relied on default passwords and operated outside secure corporate networks, leaving them vulnerable to remote manipulation by malicious actors.