This weekend, a cybersecurity attack caused refrigerators at hundreds of stores in France and elsewhere in Europe to heat up. In many instances, food defrosted and spoilt.
Typically, refrigerators are set to raise their temperatures slightly overnight to defrost. But the hack caused temperatures to rise much higher, with unconfirmed reports putting recorded heat at as much as 50-degrees Celcius.
The attack hit refrigeration controllers supplied by Danfoss.
The company has confirmed it is “aware of incidents in France affecting a limited number of refrigeration management systems.
It states that the attacks primarily affected legacy or outdated products, specifically the AK-SM800 (end-of-life in 2021) and AK-SC355 (phased out in 2016), as well as newer AK-SM800A units running outdated firmware.
“We are working with affected customers to implement appropriate mitigation measures, including firmware updates where available, stronger network protections and removing direct internet exposure where applicable.”
Affected retailers include Intermarche, Cooperative U, E Leclerc and others.