Hackers raise supermarket freezer temperatures to 50 C in second major European cyber attack

This is now the 2nd major cyber attack affecting supermarket freezers in Europe. This time, supermarkets in Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands have been hit in just a few weeks. With repeated attacks like this, it becomes clear that industrial IoT is extremely vulnerable.

Retailers scramble to disconnect networked equipment after hackers remotely manipulate defrost functions

And this is a real problem for food safety and supply chain security. These attacks might leave consumers in those areas suddenly without any frozen foods. As retailers are scrambling to get their services back in order.

In this particular case, it was the industrial freezers that are integrated into their network that came under attack. The attackers were able to remotely control the defrosting process of freezers. This made the freezers increase the temperature inside to 50 degrees Celsius. This had a devastating effect on the amount of food that was stored, in many major supermarket chains such as Ahold Delhaize, ICA, Coop etc.

To protect their stores, the retailers had to actually remove the infected equipment from the network to prevent further damage. As Stefan Moelants, CEO of the French retailer Sabcobel, explained: his people spent the night disconnecting the equipment. It really goes to show how the linked industrial equipment can be used for some serious damage to goods.

We don't know what the cost of this is, exactly, but it could be in the millions. We also don't know who the hackers were, it seems they were operating on platforms like Telegram, Discord etc. However, it really does show how important it is that we need to make sure industrial linked equipment is secure. To prevent it from happening like this in the future.