File photo: Freezer cabinets in a supermarket frozen food aisle. Photo: Raysonho / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

Hackers Hit Supermarket Freezers Across Europe as Greece Warns of Exposed Systems

02 Nov 2026, 22:22 by Stella Mazonakis · Greek City Times

Supermarkets in at least seven European countries were forced to throw out chilled and frozen food after hackers remotely tampered with their refrigeration systems overnight from Sunday 1 to Monday 2 November, in some cases cranking freezer temperatures up to 50°C.

Stores in Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Finland were affected, according to the BBC and Euronews. EU agriculture commissioner Christophe Hansen called the incidents “a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine consumers’ confidence in it”, Reuters reported.

Belgium hardest hit

Belgium bore the brunt. Citing Belgian daily Le Soir, Euronews reported that some 40 Delhaize Proxy supermarkets, 15 Carrefour Shop & Go stores, 15 Intermarché shops and five Spar Q8 service-station outlets were affected, along with butchers De Laet en Van Haver and IKEA’s store in Mons – about 75 stores in total. Belgium’s federal prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation.

A Delhaize branch in Hoeilaart told Het Laatste Nieuws it had lost €100,000 worth of produce, the BBC reported.

Stephan Moelans, chief executive of Sabcobel, which manages Delhaize’s refrigeration systems, told Belgian news agency Belga that the units’ evaporators had been switched to defrost mode – the same mechanism used in last month’s attack in France. “Over the past few weeks, we’ve been working very hard to protect our customers’ fridges against this vulnerability,” he said, adding that physical modifications, not just a software update, were needed. “The simplest solution is to manage the fridges over a secure internet connection. Most of our customers switched to that after the attack in France.”

“It is not known who is behind this attack, and it may never be determined,” said Katrien Eggers, spokesperson for Belgium’s Centre for Cybersecurity, according to Reuters.

From Sweden to Ireland

In Sweden, ICA said a “small number of ICA stores operating outside ICA’s central network” had been affected, while Coop told the BBC that seven of its 800 stores were hit. One ICA branch in Sjöbo, in southern Sweden, wrote on social media: “Our refrigerators and freezers have been hacked overnight and they have set the temperature to 50 degrees.”

In Ireland, Musgrave said 13 of its SuperValu stores were affected, with the impact limited to a “specific model” of refrigerator. Danfoss told Dutch broadcaster NOS that the systems of at least 17 companies in the Netherlands had been attacked, while in Finland refrigerator malfunctions were detected at some of Kesko’s K-stores.

In Estonia, ERR reported that an older Danfoss system at one Selver supermarket had its freezer temperature raised to 50°C. The attack was picked up within about ten minutes, temperatures rose by only two to three degrees and no products were damaged.

A repeat of France

The attacks echo the incident on 12 October, when hundreds of French supermarkets in the Intermarché and Coopérative U chains had their refrigeration systems hijacked. French police said hackers took control of cooling equipment at up to 700 supermarkets.

No one has claimed responsibility. Reuters said it could not establish who was behind the latest attacks, noting that Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in sabotage or hybrid warfare operations.

“The two most plausible attribution scenarios for me are some kind of state-based signalling and demonstration of capability or some kind of lone-wolf hacker that is conducting these attacks for their own personal reasons,” Rafe Pilling, senior director for threat intelligence at Sophos, told The Guardian.

Greece among the most exposed

No Greek supermarkets have been reported among those affected, but Greece is far from immune. According to cybersecurity firm Forescout, quoted by The Guardian, internet-exposed refrigeration systems are most common in countries including France, Italy, Greece and Belgium.

On 14 October, Greece’s National Cyber Security Authority (EAK) warned that it had identified more than 300 exposed systems in Greece, mainly commercial refrigeration controllers made by Danfoss, Copeland/Dixell and Carel. It said it was notifying the operators directly where data protection rules allow.

The authority urged businesses to disconnect such controllers from the public internet, use a VPN with multi-factor authentication for remote access, change default passwords, install updates and replace unsupported equipment. Organisations covered by the NIS2 law (5160/2024) must report any significant incident within 24 hours.

“Whatever we detect, the attacker detects too. France showed that a known but unpatched gap can become physical damage overnight,” EAK head Michalis Bletsas said in the statement.

The European Commission’s response to the attacks was also covered in Greece by CNN Greece. In Cyprus, Knews noted that the reporting does not identify any affected stores on the island, but said the earlier French attack showed how quickly interference with refrigeration can become a physical and financial problem.

Featured image: Freezer cabinets in a supermarket frozen food aisle. Photo: Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine, released under CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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