Freezer hacks spread to UK food suppliers as EU opens task force probe

The attacks are no longer a French problem. They hit food safety and stock losses at ordinary supermarkets. The fix is unglamorous network hygiene, not anything AI-driven. ENISA and Europol bring Brussels into the response.

The UK joins the list

Paul Chichester, the NCSC's director of operations, said at the launch of its annual review that the attacks did not use AI. He said they used vulnerabilities that had been out there for a long period of time. The British Association of Independent Meat Suppliers has more than 300 members. It said some members suffered collateral effects, with no meat lost and the affected units empty. The attacks have not directly hit any UK grocery chain so far.

Default passwords and old controllers

The Dutch systems that the attack hit were not on a secure network and still used default passwords, a Danfoss spokesperson told NOS. Danfoss said the weakness lies mainly in outdated software. The attack affected customers who had not updated, it said. The October attack on French supermarket fridges involved legacy technology connected to the internet with default passwords. The November attacks involved Danfoss products, as did the attacks three weeks earlier when attackers hit hundreds of French supermarkets. Danfoss's security advisories page listed no advisory when The Hacker News checked on 3 November.

Counting the damage

Ahold Delhaize said dozens of Delhaize stores in Belgium and Luxembourg had a refrigeration incident on Monday and discarded food. Colruyt Group said it had five Spar stores among the targets, against 15 Carrefour and 15 Intermarché stores in Belgium. Intermarché said the attacks hit 15 of its 153 Belgian stores, roughly a tenth of its estate. Sabcobel knows of about 20 affected units. It manages hundreds of units in Belgium.

At a De Laet & Van Haver butcher shop in Hove, fridges reached 18C. The owner estimated about €15,000 of meat went bad.

At a Selver supermarket in Estonia a freezer had a setting of 50C, but the temperature rose only about 2-3C. No products suffered damage.

Musgrave pulled chilled and frozen goods from sale at 13 SuperValu stores. It acted as a precaution.

Nobody has claimed it

No one had claimed the attacks by Monday night. No one knew their link to France. Retailers in Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden reported problems on Monday, some rising to as high as 50C. Cybersecurity experts said attacks on dummy fridge controls resembled malicious operations linked to Russia. The NCSC said it could not comment on who might have carried out the attacks. European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Christophe Hansen said the weaponization of food is a reality.

What happens next

The most detailed steps for operators are still those in an October alert from CERT-FR. CERT-FR is part of France's national cybersecurity agency. Sabcobel chief executive Stephan Moelans said its units need physical modifications. He said switching units to a secure internet connection is the simplest interim measure. NCSC chief executive Richard Horne described the fridge attacks as the foothills of an enlarged cyberthreat.