Hackers raise supermarket refrigerators to 50 C in cyberattack hitting hundreds of French stores

Refrigerators at several major supermarket chains across France saw temperatures spike to as high as 50 degrees Celsius in what authorities said was a cyberattack that left hundreds of stores with spoiled food.

The Paris prosecutor's office said Monday (local time) that a large-scale attack had struck multiple major food retailers across France, according to AFP and Reuters.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has ordered the National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) to investigate.

Carrefour said 80 of its stores were affected. Monoprix said about 5 percent of its 490 stores were hit.

Les Mousquetaires, which operates the Intermarché chain, said hackers remotely raised refrigerator temperatures to as high as 50 degrees Celsius overnight, forcing the disposal of all affected food products due to health risks. Around 300 Intermarché and Netto stores are believed to have been targeted.

Coopérative U said more than 100 of its stores were attacked. CEO Dominique Schelcher wrote on X that targeting equipment essential to preserving fresh food and France's food supply was "extremely serious and unprecedented."

Les Mousquetaires identified Danish refrigeration company Danfoss as the firm managing its systems.

Danfoss said it was aware of the situation in France and was working with customers on mitigation measures. A company spokesperson told Bloomberg that the affected products were older models that no longer receive software or security updates.

Felix Aimé, a senior cyber threat intelligence analyst at Sekoia Threat Detection & Research, said the attack appeared to have also affected Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium and Poland.

Large-scale cyberattacks and attempted breaches by hacker groups have been mounting worldwide.

Last month, one hacker group claimed to have stolen the personal information of thousands of FBI agents.

The group, which calls itself ShinyHunters, claimed to have taken sensitive personal data belonging to current and former agents and job applicants from the FBI's online recruitment portal, according to The New York Times and Reuters.

The group said the stolen data amounted to two to three terabytes and contained the personal information of thousands of individuals.

Reuters said it had obtained a 5,000-row spreadsheet from the stolen data that "contained FBI employee names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and emergency contact information."

The group demanded that the FBI retract or revise an official advisory it had issued in May about the group's hacking methods within one week, threatening "bigger consequences" if it did not comply.

The "bigger consequences" were widely understood to mean the public release of the stolen personal data.

The FBI said on its X account that it was "aware of a cybercriminal organization claiming to have compromised a recruiting portal and leaked personally identifiable information of FBI employees."

Sumon Dantiki, who handled cybersecurity work at the FBI and the Justice Department, told The New York Times that if true, "this breach is a reminder that no one is immune from cyber threats," adding that it "unfortunately amplifies serious public safety and counterintelligence risks."