Hackers Got Into Hundreds of French Supermarket Fridges and Ruined the Food
The fridges were online so technicians could monitor them, and that connection let intruders in undetected.
Reuters World News · Trump drops Russia sanctions, Israeli settlers attack US photojournalist, Oregon police say teacher and parent stopped school shooterLast weekend, hackers broke into the networks that run refrigerators in hundreds of grocery stores across France and changed the cooling settings.
Store workers walked into the frozen food aisles to find melted frozen goods and spoiled meat. They threw out boxes of ruined food. At some locations, the coolers overheated and fires broke out.
It hit hundreds of store networks at once and spoiled food across the country. The cleanup fell to supermarket staff, while investigators began work to identify the people responsible.
The refrigerators were connected to the internet so the chains could keep control of them. Technicians used the connection to watch many fridges spread across different shops.
That connection let people from outside get in and change the settings on the fridges.
One of the companies that provided the software said some of the fridges were rather old and had not been updated. The newest security fixes that could have blocked the attack were not there, so the older units remained exposed.
There were no alarm systems to catch what was happening. The hackers managed to get through the defenses and disable those protections, leaving the chains unaware that anything had happened.
Adam Jordan, the companies editor for Europe, said the case shows how an attack on basic commercial systems can reach shoppers directly. He said hackers seeking to damage companies or a country's economy could get into this kind of system and strike at something as ordinary as grocery shopping.
Investigators in France were still trying to identify the culprits.
Questions people ask
Who did it, and have they been caught?
Investigators in France were still trying to identify the people behind the attack at the time of the report, and no suspects or motives had been publicly identified. Attacks on commercial networks are often investigated for weeks before officials name anyone, if they ever do.
How can a refrigerator catch fire?
A large commercial cooler uses compressors, fans, and electrical controls to move heat out of the cabinet. If settings are changed so the system runs far outside its normal range, motors and electrical parts can overheat, and dust, packaging, or insulation nearby can ignite.
Could the spoiled food have made anyone sick?
The stores threw out the spoiled meat and melted frozen goods rather than selling them, which is the standard food safety practice. Meat and frozen food that warms above safe temperatures can grow bacteria quickly, so discarding it protects shoppers.
How do stores keep this from happening again?
The usual fixes are installing software security updates, disconnecting critical controls from the open internet, adding intrusion alarms, and requiring stronger logins for remote monitoring. Older equipment is often the hardest to fix because it may not support modern security tools.