Belgian prosecutors probe cyberattack that disabled stores’ refrigerators

Refrigerators and freezers suddenly heated up early Monday at around 40 Delhaize stores and 15 Carrefour stores, while a Carrefour spokesperson confirmed that the incident was a cyberattack and had no other cause. The same wave also affected Luxembourg, Sweden and several other European countries.

Managers of dozens of stores in Belgium woke early Monday to text messages warning them that refrigerator and freezer temperatures had suddenly risen. Delhaize sent the alerts at around 4 a.m. after it became clear that the settings of the refrigeration systems had been changed remotely overnight.

The company said around 40 of its stores in the Flanders and Wallonia regions were affected, most of them Delhaize Proxy outlets, according to Euronews and Le Soir. Delhaize described the incident as an “IT incident” and immediately disconnected the refrigeration systems from the internet, while some stores brought in refrigerated trucks to save the remaining goods. The company said some of its branches in Luxembourg were also affected but did not specify how many.

رفوف تبريد فارغة في متجر ديلهيز بمدينة غنت البلجيكية صباح الاثنين

Carrefour: A cyberattack and no other cause

Carrefour was more explicit. Michel Vergauwen, a spokesperson for its Belgian branch, said: “This is a cyberattack, and there is no other cause.” He said 15 of the chain’s 700 stores in Belgium were affected, none of them hypermarkets, and that the impact was “very limited.” The Colruyt Group also said that five independently operated Spar stores had been affected. The butcher chain De Laat & Van Haver recorded a sudden rise in temperatures, while an IKEA store in Mons was affected, according to Euronews.

Estimates of the temperatures varied. Some reports mentioned 70 degrees Celsius, although Delhaize did not confirm that figure, while RTL Info said temperatures reached around 15 degrees in most freezers. A Delhaize branch in the town of Hoeilaart reported losses of €100,000 worth of goods.

Judicial investigation and repeated mechanism

The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the case, while Catherine Eggers, a spokesperson for the Belgian Centre for Cybersecurity, said the centre was aware of the incident but had no additional information. Stefan Moulans, CEO of Sabcobel, the company that manages Delhaize’s refrigerators, said the mechanism was exactly the same as in France: the evaporators were switched to defrost mode, affecting around 20 of the hundreds of units managed by his company.

تاجر من سلسلة إيكا في بلدة مورلوندا السويدية يتحدث بعد تعطل مجمدات متجره

The wave was not limited to Belgium. In Sweden, the ICA and Coop chains announced failures at several of their stores, while Euronews reported that 13 SuperValu stores in Ireland and a Silver store in Estonia were affected. In the Netherlands, the systems of at least 17 companies were hacked, according to a spokesperson for Danish refrigeration-systems manufacturer Danfoss.

The incidents came three weeks after a similar attack in France on the night of October 11–12, which affected around 700 stores, according to the French government. European Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen said at the time that food safety deserved “more attention at all levels.” No group has so far claimed responsibility for either attack.

Images: VRT NWS; SVT

Belgian prosecutors probe cyberattack that disabled stores’ refrigerators