Supermarket refrigerator cyberattacks across Europe, Digi Mart USA News: Italy’s government has convened an emergency meeting on Tuesday following a suspected cyberattack that targeted supermarket refrigerators in at least nine European countries, raising growing concerns about the European Union’s food supply chain.
A spokesperson for the government said the meeting aims to “take stock of the wave of cyberattacks that has affected commercial refrigeration systems in Europe,” and will include the director of the National Cybersecurity Agency and the heads of the intelligence agencies.
Suspected hacker attacks on Monday hit the refrigerators of several supermarkets in Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Luxembourg, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, the Netherlands and Portugal, forcing stores to throw away large quantities of food. The incidents came three weeks after a similar cyberattack affected stores in France.
On October 12, major French retail chains reported that hundreds of refrigeration systems in their stores had been hit. European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Christophe Hansen condemned the French episode as “a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine consumer confidence,” calling it “a warning that we must take seriously.”
No group has claimed responsibility for either wave of attacks.
In Italy, Sicily was the hardest hit, with incidents at more than twenty supermarkets, according to Giovanni Arena, Sicily delegate of the retail federation Federdistribuzione. Arena told the news agency Ansa that many groups were not hacked because they have advanced, up-to-date security systems.
Arena said hackers gained access through the call centers that handle remote management and monitoring of refrigeration equipment, changing food storage temperatures. He added that his own group was affected only indirectly at three franchised stores.
Four of the roughly 300 supermarkets operated by the Radenza group, which runs Coop-branded stores in Sicily, were targeted overnight from Sunday to Monday. Managing director Giuseppe Spadaro told the Corriere della Sera that defrosting of frozen display cases was triggered, raising the temperature from a programmed -20 degrees.
He estimated the damage at several thousand euros and said everything had to be thrown away.
Spadaro said the company never expected to be a target of a cyberattack as a supermarket, adding that any internet-connected device can be subject to intrusion.
Italian media also reported that an incident at a Tuscany company operating in contract catering and an attack on a frozen food company in Emilia-Romagna were notified to the Italian National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN).
In Belgium, dozens of stores belonging to several supermarket chains, including Carrefour, Ikea, Delhaize, Colruyt and Intermarché, reported disruptions, and federal prosecutors announced an investigation.
In Sweden, where seven of the roughly 800 Coop stores were hit by a cyberattack early Monday, the situation was back to normal by Monday afternoon. Coop spokesperson Carlos Cancinos told AFP that the affected refrigeration equipment was connected to older 4G networks and that the chain has a large modernization program moving stores to 5G networks.
Swedish chain Ica said Monday that a limited number of its stores had refrigeration problems but did not confirm a cyberattack was the cause. A spokesperson said the affected stores were all linked to an external refrigeration control system supplied by Danish manufacturer Danfoss, the same provider targeted in the October 12 attack on French retailers.
