Hackers remotely defrost supermarket refrigerators across France, putting fresh and frozen food stocks at risk and triggering a probe into reported damage and fires (
The attack sparked fires and food losses after they forced fridges up to 50 degrees Celsius for hours overnight at several hundred stores. A cyberattack targeting refrigeration systems at hundreds of French supermarket outlets has forced stores to discard fresh and frozen food, prompting a police investigation into the incident and reported outbreaks of fire. Investigators will seek to establish the extent of the damage, identify the affected businesses and determine whether the reported food losses were linked to outbreaks of fire.
Dominique Schelcher, chief executive of Cooperative U, described the incident as “unprecedented”. The Paris prosecutor’s office said an investigation had been launched into “the large-scale cyberattack affecting the refrigerators of several major food retail chains across France”. “Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is extremely serious and is unprecedented. It is unacceptable,” he wrote on X.