Cyberattack on French supermarkets ruins tons of food and causes millions in losses

A cyberattack launched last night against several supermarket chains in France caused fresh and frozen merchandise to spoil, resulting in losses valued at millions of euros, the owner of one of the affected companies confirmed.

According to the television network BFMTV, the hackers managed to enter the remote control system for the refrigeration units and launched a rapid defrost program, setting them to 50 degrees, which caused the products to spoil.

The French government has taken this attack very seriously and ordered the opening of an investigation, focusing essentially on potential security flaws at the Danish company Danfoss, which is responsible for the affected refrigeration systems.

Executive sources indicated that Paris is in contact with other European Union (EU) countries potentially affected, while seeking to establish the scope of the damage in France.

European Commissioner for Agriculture, Christophe Hansen, condemned the attacks on the social network X, called for increased vigilance, and warned that "the instrumentalization of food has become a reality."

"Attacking equipment essential to the conservation of fresh products and the food supply of the French people is of extreme gravity and is unprecedented. It is unacceptable," wrote the head of the Coopérative U supermarkets, Dominique Schelcher, on X.

In addition to his chain, the attack also affected stores from Intermarché, Netto, Leclerc, Monoprix, and, according to some media, some Carrefour supermarkets as well.

Some of these groups reported how many of their stores were affected, but others were more opaque. The Mousquetaires group, owner of Intermarché and Netto, estimated it at "at least 300," Coopérative U at "a hundred," while Leclerc did not specify figures and Monoprix said "about thirty."

Various companies in the freezer sector, whose systems were affected, are holding a crisis meeting to understand how the attack could have occurred and to introduce mechanisms to prevent it in the future.

The Danish company Danfoss had already warned on September 18th that it had detected security vulnerabilities in its computer systems.