Hackers Froze Out 400 French Supermarkets and the Food Went With Them

By Daniel Okafor

Hackers knocked out refrigeration systems at more than 400 French supermarkets, and some stores had to throw their food away. The New York Times reported the attack. France's National Cybersecurity Agency said the hackers targeted systems built by three companies that control refrigerators remotely.

The breakdown by chain is specific. Roughly 300 Intermarché and Netto stores took the hit. Another 80 Coopérative U locations went dark on cooling, plus 30 Monoprix sites. Nobody has claimed responsibility. Paris prosecutors have not identified the culprits.

Many of the targeted systems were running outdated software, according to the reporting.

What makes this attack different?

Most hackers chase data. Credit card numbers, passwords, medical records. This attack chased frozen peas.

That distinction matters for anyone running physical operations. The attackers did not need to breach a payment network or a customer database. They reached into the machinery that keeps food cold, the least glamorous corner of a supermarket's technology stack, and shut it down.

The result was physical waste, not just digital theft. When refrigeration fails, the inventory inside it spoils. Stores throw it out. The loss shows up as dumpsters full of product, not as a line item in a cybersecurity disclosure.

Dominique Schelcher, head of Coopérative U, called the attack "unprecedented" and "extremely serious." He did not mince words about the target. "They're attacking the French people's food supply," he said in an interview with RTL radio.

What does it cost?

Schelcher has not put a total figure on the damage. But he gave a scale. A single refrigeration failure, he said, can cost a small supermarket tens of thousands of dollars.

Multiply that across more than 400 sites and the arithmetic gets uncomfortable fast, even before counting the stores that lost full cold-chain inventories.

Schelcher's framing carried the weight of a long career. "In my entire professional career, I've never seen anything like this," he said.

Why outdated software is the story here

The detail about outdated software deserves attention. Remote monitoring systems for industrial equipment, refrigerators included, often sit in place for years. They work. Nobody upgrades them. They fall outside the security budgets that protect point-of-sale terminals and e-commerce platforms.

That makes them a soft target. A refrigerator controller does not process payments, so it rarely gets audited like a payment system does. But it holds something just as valuable to a grocer: the product itself.

Three separate vendors' systems were hit in this attack, according to the National Cybersecurity Agency. That spread suggests the attackers found a weakness common to remote refrigeration controls, not a single company's lapse.

Who did it?

For now, nobody knows. No group has claimed the attack. Paris prosecutors are on the case and have not named suspects.

The silence leaves the motive open. Ransom is one possibility in attacks on operational systems. Disruption is another. Without a claim or an identified actor, French grocers are left counting spoiled stock while investigators work.

What comes next

The immediate question for French retailers is inventory and insurance: how much food was lost, and who pays for it. The longer question is infrastructure. If attackers can reach refrigeration controls at 400 stores in one campaign, every chain running similar remote systems now has to ask whether its own equipment is current.

For an industry that measures risk in shrinkage and spoilage, this attack adds a new column to the ledger: cyber-driven food waste. Schelcher's assessment, from a career spent in French grocery, is that this one has no precedent.