Posted on 11/03/2026 5:42:44 AM PST by SeekAndFind
European supermarkets have become the center of another cyberattack, with hackers remotely heating fridges and spoiling food.
The attack caused temperatures in fridges and freezers to rise sharply, with at least one store reporting temperatures of up to 50°C (122°F) and other retailers discarding food. It’s sparked concerns across the retail industry.
Dutch supermarket group Ahold Delhaize reportedly had dozens of Delhaize stores affected in Belgium and Luxembourg.
The Dutch supermarket giant told CNBC that there was an incident with refrigeration systems in dozens of its stores on Monday, which has resulted in food having to be discarded. It said the situation has since returned to normal with stores fully operational.
Meanwhile, Colruyt Group said five of its Spar stores in Belgium were targeted, according to Reuters. French supermarket Carrefour told the BBC that 15 of its Belgian-based stores were attacked too. France’s Intermarché also said 15 stores out of 153 in total were impacted in Belgium.
“In most cases, the security measures in place made it possible to quickly contain the attack,” an Intermarché spokesperson told CNBC. “However, a few stores did suffer some stock losses, although nothing comparable to the attack in mid-October.
“At this stage, the information available to us indicates that the bulk of the attack affected other players in the sector, notably Carrefour and Delhaize,” they added.
IKEA told CNBC that a cyber incident affected refrigerators and freezers at its Mons store in Belgium between Sunday and Monday.
Although the store is still open to customers, the company is inspecting the affected equipment and products as well as checking installations across its other stores in Belgium.
“The incident has a limited impact on the offering in our restaurant and Swedish Food Market,” an IKEA spokesperson said over email.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
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Why have a fridge with any kind of controls but a mechanical thermostat and maybe a humidity control?
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
“at least one store reporting temperatures of up to 50°C (122°F)”
We are in the age of Internet of Things ( IOT ), where devices and appliances are now connected to the internet and can be controlled remotely.
Of course, with this convenience comes the risk of hacking.
Voting Machines anyone?
The “modern” refrigerator tells you what you have and what you need to get. It may even order it for you. For this, it comes with WiFi. Great, huh? ;-)
Have you been in a coma for the last several years? I’m not sure they even make a fridge that’s not run on a computer any more.
Have the “wrong” kinds of food in your fridge, up goes your medical insurance rates.
In Venezuela, they scanned your fingerprint to make sure you were only buying what they allotted ... and, you could only shop on the (2) days THEY said you could shop.
This story came out over the weekend. It is also most likely the reason multiple EU countries came out with an advisory to stock up on food.
Unlike most people in North America, Europeans especially in the metro areas do not have that much food on hand. They have fridges the size of what we had in dorm rooms. IF the local grocery store runs out they would literally be starving within a week.
Whereas many of us could go for a month or more just eating what is in our pantry, basement, freezers(plural), etc.
The governments know that these grocery chains have freezers and refrigeration systems controlled from a remote location. Which makes them vulnerable to hacking. Whether those hackers are in Russia and looking for a Payment in BITCOIN or Iranian hackers looking to do damage in the west.
Obviously, the intelligence agencies KNEW about this as a possibility. Therefore, Germany, France, Sweden, UK all put out advisories to their citizens to stock up on food stuffs.
Of course that means that Bongino, Glen Beck, Alex Jones, and a dozen of other CLICK BAIT MFers had to come out with videos that the end is near.
Then Tucker came out with his X post saying that Trump was going to use nukes on the Iran mountain site after the election. To scare the crap out of everyone to not vote for Republicans and the sky is falling
There was a time, as the Roman Empire started to collapse, when there was a massive drop in trade and cities built massive walls to protect themselves from the barbarians who increasingly came across the borders and who the Roman armies could no longer stop. Late Rome looked a lot like medieval Europe. Walled off and taking a big step backward in technology. When I read stories like this, I can’t help but think we may be heading into a similar period; not with physical walls but with our internet connected world. The days of technological advancement resulting from internet connectivity may be behind us as hackers and scammers get more and more sophisticated. We may have to retreat into simpler technology that is not online. Maybe there is some marginal benefit by having a supermarket freezer operated from a central source, but if hackers can use it to destroy product, that feature may need to be turned off and we may need to go back to old-school freezers. Same for a lot of other “advancements” using online monitoring and control.
Yes. Gone are the days where customers bought products. Now, the customer IS the product. I am sure that a “modern” refrigerator will sell everything it can get - what temperatures you keep it at, what foods you buy, how many times you open the door, what time of night you snack, the audio and video collected from your kitchen, the GPS location of the refrigerator... The list is endless.
This information is very useful to governments, insurance companies and others and access can be sold, too.
Unfortunately, there really is no such thing as an “old” fridge - at least one you would like to pay for the electricity for. They wear out and you will have to buy a “new” one. Currently, you can get an “old” style fridge, but you also get what you pay for. If it can’t sell your information, the compressor will probably chug its way through liquid refrigerant every time it fires up, costing you electricity and an early replacement.
“The attack caused temperatures in fridges and freezers to rise sharply, with at least one store reporting temperatures of up to 50°C (122°F)”
What, do they have heaters in their fridges?
This makes no sense, the worst they could do is turn off the coolers and you’d get room temperature not 122 degrees.
I know that is all pushed, but my wife’s family has several restaurants, including a new one with new walk in fridge and freezer.
They were offered all sorts of goodies — including one that kept a log of temperatures to prove to inspectors the required temp was maintained— but they opted for one with a mechanical thermostat and mechanical humidifier and gauge.
Just more stuff to break otherwise.
Good heavens. You don’t even mention China. Otherwise, I agree.
I only mention Russia because my company got hacked in 2021. By the Russians. We were without our main computer operating systems for one month. The only thing that still worked was the 1980s IBM AS 400 mainframe. We actually brought back our retired IT head because he knew how to run the AS400 system.
We ended up paying some amount of ransom to get back our systems. We were faxing items. Taking pictures of hand written order confirmations and texting the picture to a customer.
RATHER HAVE NUKES FALLING IN IRAN THAN ON OMAHA OR DALLAS OR CHICAGO
HAVE TO THINK LONG & HARD ABOUT NYC OR LA.
just because you can attach your toaster to the Internet, doesn’t mean you should ...
live by the Internet, die by the Internet ...
Old news.
Hackers heat French supermarket fridges, sparking fires and spoiling food
10/12/2026 7:16:41 PM PDT · by yesthatjallen · 23 replies
Reuters ^ | 10 12 2026 | Leo Marchandon and Gabriel Stargardter
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4398974/posts
Pentagon treating military base freezer malfunctions as suspected cyberattack: officials
10/29/2026 8:42:28 AM PDT · by dynachrome · 47 replies
NY Post ^ | 10-29-26 | Reuters
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4401035/posts
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