Hackers Cranked European Supermarket Freezers to 122 Degrees Overnight

A cyberattack pushed supermarket freezer and refrigerator temperatures to 122 degrees Fahrenheit overnight Monday, spoiling food across six European countries and setting some units on fire.

Grocery stores in Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands and Estonia were hit, according to previous reporting by Reuters. The attack struck overnight and hit refrigerated and freezer sections, causing widespread product losses.

Affected retailers include stores owned by Ahold Delhaize, Colruyt, ICA and Coop. IKEA, which also sells frozen food including its iconic meatballs, saw at least one store affected. Fast Company reached out to Ahold Delhaize, Colruyt, ICA and IKEA for comment but received no response by publication time.

What did the attack do to stores?

Coop confirmed to Fast Company that around seven of its 800 Sweden locations were affected. Issues ranged from complete refrigerator and freezer shutdowns to partially functioning equipment, plus one instance of a system generating heat. Carlos Cancino, head of press relations at Coop Sweden, said the affected locations are now fully operational again.

The overnight attack raised temperatures in both freezer and refrigerator units to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. That heat destroyed stock and, in some cases, caused equipment to catch fire.

Is this the first attack of its kind?

No. The incidents follow a similar cyberattack in France last month, which affected around 700 grocery stores with losses estimated at tens of millions of euros. That attack also raised freezer and refrigerator system temperatures to around 122 degrees, causing food loss and some fires, according to The Guardian.

The scale is escalating rather than isolated. Two mass attacks on food retail infrastructure within roughly a month have now hit at least seven European countries combined.

Who is responding, and what are they saying?

EU Commissioner for Agriculture Christophe Hansen told Reuters: "They are a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine consumers' confidence in it—a warning that we must take seriously. The repeated occurrence of these cyberattacks is deeply concerning."

Hansen's framing signals the attacks are now a policy-level concern in Brussels, not just a retailer IT problem.

How were the hackers able to do this?

The widespread attacks were possible because in-store systems—from freezers to surveillance cameras—can be controlled remotely. Both attacks appear to have compromised internet-connected units using mostly temperature control technology from Danish engineering company Danfoss, according to TechCrunch.

That shared vendor footprint explains how one attack pattern reached stores across multiple countries and retail groups in a single night.

What does this mean for the food supply chain?

The attacks expose growing vulnerabilities in the food supply chain. Last year, United Natural Foods (UNFI) faced "unauthorized activity" on its IT systems, and grocery stores across the country experienced disruptions as a result of that attack.

The pattern is consistent: food distribution and retail depend on connected industrial systems, and those systems have now been weaponized twice in a month. With Danfoss equipment embedded across European grocery fleets and attackers demonstrating repeat capability, retailers face pressure to segment and secure remote-access controls before the next overnight strike destroys more inventory.

Ahold Delhaize, Colruyt, ICA and IKEA had not commented by publication time.