A cyberattack on French supermarket fridges has left several hundred locations in chaos. As reported by Dexerto, the incident started overnight from October 11 to 12.
The specific supermarkets that were affected were Intermarché and Coopérative U. The owner of Intermarché, Les Mousquetaires, said that fridges had reached 122 degrees for up to six hours.
A statement was put out around stores explaining what had happened. Translated from French, it reads, "Dear customers, Following a cyberattack on one of our service providers, which remotely controls the temperatures of our refrigerated display cabinets, we are obliged to withdraw the affected stock from sale."
"This is why you will not find the full range of our usual products in your store. Thank you for your understanding. The Management."
The incident even apparently caused fires in some locations due to the prolonged heat.
The CEO of Coopérative U, Dominique Schelchr, said that "Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is of extreme gravity and is unprecedented."
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The Company Explained The Supermarket Fridges Were Vulnerable
The company behind the fridges that were affected, Danfoss, explained that the affected units were running "outdated firmware". Per Reuters, they also added they had "long advised customers to keep supported systems updated with the latest firmware and to migrate legacy systems to current-generation solutions."
However, concerns have been raised by the French retail association over the incident. They said they wished for "full transparency" from Danfoss. They also explained that this incident could have been connected to another incident earlier this month involving the US military.
As of October 14, the origin of the incident remains unclear. While there are some indicators with previous incidents, and the security breach has been identified, no one has been named as having been responsible. Luckily, the incident appears to have been resolved, with stores being back to operational as normal.
We hope that whoever is responsible is caught, and justice is served in this case, and that something like this does not happen again. After all, the French love their cheeses.
