Hackers broke into supermarket refrigeration controls on Sunday night, switching settings so units thawed instead of cooling. Temperatures in refrigerators and freezers climbed to 50C, or 122F, for about six hours, ruining meat, frozen foods and produce that then had to be thrown away.
A spokesman for Groupement Mousquetaires said roughly 150 Intermarché stores were affected and that the equipment is managed by Danish refrigeration specialist Danfoss. Cooperative U was also hit, according to CEO Dominique Schelcher on X, and Agence France-Presse said under 100 locations in the chain were affected. A Carrefour representative said 80 of its supermarkets were affected out of a 6,000-site network. BFM reported some Leclerc stores were targeted; Leclerc did not immediately respond when Bloomberg sought comment.
Authorities have not yet identified the perpetrators. Danfoss said it was "aware of incidents in France" and is working with customers on mitigation measures. Lars Grubak Lohff, a Danfoss spokesperson, told Bloomberg that most of the impacted products are legacy technologies, citing the AK-SM 800 and AK-SC 355 controllers, which he said no longer get software or security updates. "Danfoss has long advised customers to keep supported systems updated with the latest firmware and to migrate legacy systems to current-generation solutions," he wrote.
Groupement Mousquetaires noted that any formal complaint to authorities would be the supplier's responsibility.
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Warnings about this kind of real world disruption have been piling up. In August, the UK's National Cyber Security Centre said more attacks are aiming for physical impact, tying the trend partly to geopolitical instability, and noted that multiple sectors worldwide have been targeted by a variety of threat actors.
Operational technology is a growing target, not just databases. In July in the US, suspected Iranian hackers struck drinking-water sites across no fewer than seven states, in some instances impairing operations. Separately this summer, unidentified hackers went after oil and gas tankers, at one point briefly getting into the propulsion system of a tanker nearing the Texas coast.
Researchers have also spotlighted risks in supermarket systems. In August, Team82 at Claroty detailed flaws in Danfoss controllers used in grocery and cold storage sites, saying they uncovered a hidden authentication pathway that could let an intruder meddle with refrigeration operations.
Huntress's virtual chief information security officer and EMEA cybersecurity adviser, Muhammad Yahya Patel, described the refrigeration incidents as exactly the sort of threat the security community has long cautioned about as the "next frontier for sabotage attacks." Patel added, "They've now been weaponized against food retail infrastructure in one of Europe's largest economies." He continued, "The immediate financial consequences are significant and visible."
Danfoss's funding window stayed open despite the turmoil: on Monday it sold a €500 million 5.5-year bond, and investors placed orders exceeding €3 billion, according to a person familiar who asked not to be named, with lead managers tightening pricing by up to 37 basis points during the sale. In September, President Emmanuel Macron said he had instructed his government to devise a plan to safeguard France's critical infrastructure and its defense industrial and technological base from drone and cyberattacks, citing intensifying hostile actions from Russia.
For your wallet, here's the takeaway: this is a clear example of cyber risk turning into spoiled inventory, emergency fixes and public headaches. If a business relies on aging operational tech, the costs and reputational fallout can hit fast, even before anyone figures out who pulled the strings.
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