Supermarkets across France have been hit by a co-ordinated cyberattack raising the temperatures of their fridges by up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit), triggering fires and causing millions of dollars-worth of food losses.
According to Reuters, Les Mousquetaires, which owns retailer Intermarché, said around 150 of its stores had been hit, with fridges heated up to 50 degrees Celsius for six hours forcing it to dispose of all food to avoid sanitary risks. Cooperative U CEO Dominique Schelcher also confirmed his supermarket had been hit by the attack.
Schelcher said in an online post: "Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products is an attack on the French food supply chain. It is unprecedented, extremely serious, and unacceptable. We remain fully mobilized."
Other supermarkets, including French retail giants Carrefour and Monoprix, were also reported to have been hit with similar consequences. French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has instructed France's National Cybersecurity Agency ANSSI to investigate the attacks.
France co-ordinating with countries that may also have been attacked
According to the French Prime Minister's office, France is "coordinating with its European counterparts, as other countries may also be affected," while also investigating whether any other French firms were at risk. Christophe Hansen, the European Union's agriculture and food commissioner, has also condemned the attack online.
Dutch supermarket company Ahold Delhaize said it was also dealing with a "security issue" in its network, and had taken several systems offline to protect them. It is not yet clear whether the issue is connected to the cyber-attacks in France.
As yet, no-one has claimed responsibility for the attacks and the authorities remain baffled. But the ease with which the attacks on the supermarkets were carried out raises an alarming precedent.
An isolated attack such as this causes inconvenience for shoppers and has a limited impact on the retailers' bottom line. But it also raises the spectre of what might happen in the event of an all-out cyber-attack. Power supplies, communications systems, financial services and other critical services have all been targeted in the past. Governments are now finally waking up to what a concerted attack on critical infrastructure could do to a city. Added to this is the very real threat of what might happen if food supplies were also simultaneously disrupted, leaving a population with no power, no food and no communications.
