In the last 48 hours, hundreds of hacker attacks on a large number of supermarkets owned by industry giants in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and elsewhere have caused great disruption and concern.
Hacker attacks on stores were also reported in Poland, Germany, Luxembourg and Portugal, but it was not clear whether they fall into the same category of attacks as the one in France.
In France, hundreds of stores of the supermarket chains Intermarché and Coopérative U were affected by the attacks. Carrefour, Netto, E. Leclerc and Monoprix were less affected.
In Belgium and Luxembourg, problems were reported in electronic systems of the Delhaize chain, which is owned by the Ahold Delhaize group. In the Netherlands, the Albert Heijn supermarket chain was affected.
As reported by the French media, in the supermarkets affected by the cyberattack, the temperature in refrigerators and freezers rose above 50 degrees Celsius, causing the destruction of huge quantities of food, worth many millions.
Supermarket managers were forced to throw away fresh and frozen products and turn off refrigerators and coolers for a long time, until problems in their operation were addressed. The service of thousands of customers was affected for a long time on Monday and Tuesday. Until late yesterday afternoon, many supermarkets in France had not fully reopened after the cyberattack.
The CEO of Coopérative U, Dominique Selser, described the attack as unprecedented and confirmed that the attack on the electronic control systems of the cold rooms occurred from Sunday night and continued on Monday. "The fact that equipment necessary to preserve fresh produce and supply the French with food is being targeted is extremely serious and unprecedented. It's unacceptable," he wrote on X.
The Paris prosecutor's office confirmed to the AFP agency that it has launched an investigation into "the large-scale cyberattack that hit the cold rooms of several major food distribution chains across France".
The cyber attack was also condemned by the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, Christophe Hansen.
