Cyberattack Disables Freezers at Dozens of Supermarkets Across Seven European Countries

A cyberattack disrupted freezers and refrigerators at dozens of supermarkets across seven European countries on Monday, November 2, 2026, forcing stores to discard large quantities of food. The incidents followed a similar series of hacks that hit roughly 700 French supermarkets in one night in October.

Around 40 Delhaize stores in Belgium and Luxembourg were affected. Smaller numbers of shops were hit in Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Finland. Ahold Delhaize and Colruyt in Belgium and Luxembourg, Swedish chains ICA and Coop, Carrefour in Belgium, and one IKEA store in Belgium all reported problems. In Ireland, 13 SuperValu supermarkets were impacted.

Sabcobel, a Belgian company that manufactures some of the affected refrigerators, said the units’ evaporators were switched to defrost mode, causing them to warm up. Temperatures rose to as high as 55 degrees Celsius in some units. One ICA store in Sweden reported that all freezers reached 50 degrees. A Delhaize branch in Hoeilaart, Flanders, estimated losses of €100,000 in produce, not counting further costs from temporary closure.

Sweden’s national cybersecurity centre began investigating. A spokesperson for ICA said a limited number of stores were affected overnight. Finland’s Kesko said its security experts were examining the cause. The attack was not technically complex. Hackers used known vulnerabilities to reach the systems that remotely control each unit’s temperature. Among suppliers affected in the earlier French incidents was Danfoss, a Danish company, which told customers to update hardware and software to close a security gap in its control systems.

The method allowed access through a backdoor into controllers in stores that were not using a secure internet connection. About 20 shops using equipment from one Belgian supplier were hit in the latest wave, including Carrefour, Spar and Delhaize outlets. Investigators have not publicly identified the actors behind the attacks. The incidents raise questions about the exposure of operational technology in retail refrigeration systems across multiple countries.

Stores responded by emptying units and disposing of thawed products. Some branches closed temporarily while systems were reset and security reviewed. The pattern of two large-scale attacks within weeks suggests that the same or related methods remain effective against unpatched systems.

European retailers have begun reviewing remote-control access for refrigeration equipment. The attacks demonstrate how a relatively simple intrusion into industrial control systems can produce immediate, visible losses of perishable goods without the need for more sophisticated malware.