Cyberattack Heats French Supermarket Freezers to 50°C, Spoils Food

A coordinated cyberattack overnight on 11–12 October compromised the remote refrigeration management software of Danish supplier Danfoss, causing freezers and chillers in hundreds of French supermarkets to run continuous defrost cycles at temperatures up to 50 °C.

Major retailers Coopérative U, Intermarché, Netto, Carrefour, Monoprix, E.Leclerc and Auchan reported incidents across approximately 400 stores nationwide, with over 100 Coopérative U outlets and 180 Intermarché and Netto locations directly affected.

“If France is not supplied by its supermarkets, the people will go hungry and a hungry people will go to revolution.”

Another 100 stores were emergency-disconnected from the internet to prevent further spread, while two outlets in Alsace alone recorded combined losses of €270,000; sector estimates place total commercial losses in the tens of millions of euros.

Danfoss confirmed the targeted systems were older models whose security software could no longer be patched against a known vulnerability, and reiterated its long-standing advice to keep compatible systems updated.

French authorities have opened an investigation into the unprecedented attack, which Les Mousquetaires president Thierry Cotillard warned exposes critical food-supply vulnerabilities.