Hackers turn up the heat on Europe’s supermarket freezers again

Supermarkets around Europe were yet again targeted by hackers on Monday in a second wave of cyberattacks. Temperatures of supermarket fridges and freezers rose as high as 50 degrees. Around 40 Delhaize stores in Belgium and Luxembourg were affected, along with some shops in Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands and Estonia.

Last Month, a similar attack was carried out against hundreds of French supermarkets. Sacobel, a Belgian company that manufactures some refrigeration units used in stores, said that evaporators had been switched to defrost mode. The October incident caused losses of millions of euros. This time, a single Belgian branch reported losing €100,000 worth of produce.

So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but concerns are growing among European authorities given the threat of hybrid warfare and security concerns on the continent since the start of the Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Tom Hegel, a researcher at cybersecurity firm SentinelOne, pointed out that such attacks with the absence of financial demands pointed to sabotage operations. EU commissioner for agriculture Christophe Hansen said the attacks were ‘a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine ​consumers’ confidence in it’.

References:

[Cover Image] Supermarket fridge produce food market retail [Photograph]. (n.d.). PickPik. https://www.pickpik.com/supermarket-fridge-produce-food-market-retail-42475

BBC News. (2026, November 2). Shop freezers in seven European countries hit by suspected cyber-attack. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq1kd1nee80eo

Reuters. (2026, November 2). Cyberattack on fridges hits supermarkets across Europe. https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/temperature-soars-swedish-grocery-store-freezers-one-store-blames-hackers-2026-11-02/