"Who Turned Up the Refrigerators?" Hackers Target 700 Supermarkets, Sparking Alarm... "A Blow to France's Food Security"

Refrigerator temperatures soar to 50 degrees Celsius
No hacking group has claimed responsibility yet

AFP-Yonhap News

French authorities announced that nearly 700 stores across the country had been affected by the hacking of supermarket refrigerators. Despite the extensive damage caused by the simultaneous attacks, investigators have yet to identify who was behind them. Some have speculated that they may have been a Russian hybrid attack.

According to AFP on October 13 (local time), French Economy Minister Roland Lescure appeared before parliament that day to report what the government had learned about the supermarket hacking incident. “About 700 of the roughly 10,000 supermarkets in France were affected. There is no risk to the food supply,” he said. “This cyberattack struck at the heart of our food security and is a wake-up call for everyone.”

The incident began with cyberattacks targeting supermarket refrigerators across France overnight from October 11 to 12. The attacks caused temperatures inside the refrigerators to rise to as high as 50 degrees Celsius, forcing stores to discard all the food kept in them.

Most of France’s major supermarket chains are reported to have been affected. Carrefour said 80 of its stores were hit, while Monoprix said 5% of its 490 stores were affected. Les Mousquetaires, which operates the Intermarché and Netto supermarket chains, reported that 300 stores had been targeted. Coopérative U also said that more than 100 stores were affected.

Investigators have yet to identify who was behind the hacking. The Paris prosecutor’s office said its cybercrime unit was leading the investigation and was also assessing the scale of the damage, including discarded food and fires at stores. Hacking groups generally demand payment after an attack, but no group has claimed responsibility in this case, and investigators are also finding it difficult to determine the motive.

Meanwhile, some have suggested that other European countries may have experienced similar refrigerator-hacking incidents. Felix Eme, a senior cyber threat intelligence analyst at the Sequoia Threat Detection Institute, told Reuters, “Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium also appear to have been affected.”

Some have also raised the possibility that Russia was behind a hybrid attack. A hybrid attack refers to the use of a combination of nonmilitary means, such as cyberattacks, fake news, economic sanctions and sabotage, to target another country outside of conventional warfare. According to Le Monde, French President Emmanuel Macron told a cabinet meeting last month that “Russia’s hybrid offensive has intensified in recent weeks” and instructed the relevant departments to “draw up defense plans for critical infrastructure and defense facilities.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.