Supermarkets across Europe were hit Monday by a new wave of apparent cyberattacks affecting fridges and freezers.
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Supermarkets → hit → fridges
The incidents caused temperature spikes and spoiled food at stores in Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Estonia.
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incidents → cause → Sweden
It follows a cyberattack in France last month, in which police said hackers seized control of cooling units at hundreds of supermarkets, raising temperatures as high as 122 degrees Fahrenheit and causing fires and food losses.
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hackers → follow → fires
Authorities have not indicated who could have been behind the incidents.
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who → indicate → incidents
The issues come as the continent confronts broader security fears stemming from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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continent → come → Ukraine
The new cyberattack highlights how digital threats can increasingly affect citizens’ everyday lives, the European Commission said Monday.
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Commission → highlight → lives
The Ahold Delhaize supermarket chain in the Netherlands told NBC News on Monday that it was aware of an “IT incident” affecting the refrigeration systems in a number of its stores.
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it → tell → stores
“Our teams are working hard to fully assess the situation,” the company said in an email.
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company → work → email
Stephan Moelans, the CEO of Belgian refrigeration company Sabcobel, which operates Delhaize’s systems, told the Belga news agency that the incident was a cyberattack, in which the units’ evaporators were switched to defrost mode.
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evaporators → operate → mode
A spokesperson for Colruyt Group, which operates Spar stores in Belgium under a franchise system, said five shops had their fridge systems attacked.
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systems → operate → system
The Carrefour supermarket chain in the country said a “cyberattack targeting refrigeration installations only had an extremely limited impact,” affecting 15 of its more than 700 stores.
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cyberattack → say → stores
Sweden’s grocery retailer chain ICA told NBC News its systems were not affected, but that it had been informed of “an incident at a small number of stores that use an external supplier and have their connectivity outside ICA’s central network.
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that → tell → network
The incident has affected the stores’ refrigeration and freezer systems, the company said in an email.
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company → affect → email
“ICA is currently supporting the affected stores in managing the incident,” it said.
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it → support → incident
The ICA Kvantum branch in Sjöbo in southern Sweden wrote on its Facebook page that its fridges and freezers had been hacked and set to 122 degrees Fahrenheit.
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fridges → write → Fahrenheit
It said it was working to discard the affected items.
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it → say → items
Privately held grocery retail group Coop told Swedish daily Aftonbladet that six of its stores had been affected by similar incidents.
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six → hold → incidents
In Ireland, food wholesaler Musgrave said that a cyber incident had affected refrigeration systems in 13 of its SuperValu stores, forcing it to remove some chilled and frozen products from sale.
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incident → say → sale
“Our monitoring systems alerted us to the issue and we took immediate action,” it said in a statement.
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it → alert → statement
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
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company → respond → News
In Estonia, a company that makes the affected technology said that one of its clients had been hit by a cyberattack in which attackers accessed a computer controlling refrigeration and also turned up the temperature to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, public broadcaster ERR reported.
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ERR → make → Fahrenheit
From refrigerators and heating systems to security cameras and alarm networks, an expanding range of devices can now be monitored and controlled remotely, creating new opportunities for cybercriminals.
Sweden’s national cybersecurity center — which said it could not speculate on who was behind the attacks — is working on several incidents affecting grocery stores across the country, the head of the center, John Billow, said on Monday.
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head → expand → Monday
“We have in recent weeks... identified that we have quite a lot of exposed operational technology devices in Sweden that we have been clear about the necessity to update or patch,” the cybersecurity center’s Billow said.
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Billow → identify → necessity
The Aporia
