Hackers Raise Freezer Temperatures to 50C Across Supermarkets in Seven European Countries

Hackers remotely raised the temperature of refrigerators and freezers in dozens of supermarkets across seven European countries on 2 November 2026, forcing retailers to discard large quantities of spoiled food. Affected countries included Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Finland. Temperatures in some units reached 50 degrees Celsius.

Around 40 Delhaize stores in Belgium and Luxembourg were hit. Carrefour reported problems at 15 of its 700 Belgian outlets. ICA and Coop stores in Sweden confirmed incidents, with one ICA location in Sjöbo stating that freezers had been set to 50C and that stock worth hundreds of thousands of kronor was ruined. Thirteen SuperValu stores in Ireland were affected. Smaller numbers of shops in the Netherlands, Estonia and Finland also reported failures. One IKEA store in Belgium saw refrigeration systems disrupted.

The method matched an earlier attack in France in October that affected roughly 700 supermarkets. In that case hackers compromised internet-exposed remote controllers for cooling systems, switching units into defrost mode or raising set points. Belgian manufacturer Sabcobel said evaporators on some of its units were switched to defrost. Danish supplier Danfoss had previously advised customers to update hardware and software after the French incidents. The EU food and agriculture commissioner, Christophe Hansen, called the repeated attacks a deliberate attempt to disrupt the food supply chain and undermine consumer confidence.

No group has claimed responsibility. Swedish and Belgian cybersecurity centres opened investigations. Retailers described the events as IT incidents or confirmed cyberattacks. One Delhaize branch in Hoeilaart, Flanders, estimated losses of €100,000 in produce alone, excluding the cost of temporary closure. Managers reported that they could not adjust temperatures once the systems had been compromised.

The attacks exploit basic security gaps: control systems left reachable from the internet, weak authentication and unpatched software. Once inside, an attacker can change temperature set points across multiple sites without physical access. The second wave arrived weeks after the French incident, indicating that not all operators had completed the recommended updates or that additional vectors remained open.

Food waste and short-term supply disruption are the immediate effects. Longer-term costs include hardware replacement, insurance claims and potential regulatory scrutiny of how critical cold-chain equipment is networked. The incidents also highlight the exposure of operational technology in retail. Similar remote-access controllers are used in warehouses, restaurants and food-processing plants.

Investigators have not identified a specific actor. The absence of a ransomware demand and the broad geographic spread have led some analysts to consider state-linked or hacktivist motives aimed at visible disruption rather than financial extortion. European authorities have treated the events as coordinated rather than isolated technical failures.

Stores that lost refrigeration capacity moved remaining stock into temporary cold storage where possible or discarded it. The pattern of two large-scale attacks within a month shows that the vulnerability remains active and that patching alone has not eliminated the risk for every operator using the affected controller types.