A fresh wave of cyberattacks has hit Europe’s supermarket refrigerators, destroying food across countries
- ID
- 41967
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 02 Nov 2026, 10:08 PM
- Fetched
- 02 Nov 2026, 10:18 PM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/02/a-fresh-wave-of-cyberattacks-has-hit-europes-supermarket-refrigerators-destroying-food-across-countries/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 4.5
- Created
- 02 Nov 2026, 10:20 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developers
What happened
A suspected second wave of attacks on internet-connected supermarket refrigerators pushed units into defrost mode, spoiling food at dozens of stores in Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg and Sweden, with Ahold Delhaize and Colruyt confirming the hacks overnight. A Belgian company operating Delhaize's systems told Reuters the attackers changed the fridge settings directly. Researchers attributed the earlier French incident — which spoiled food at hundreds of supermarkets last month — to connected refrigerators made by Danish firm Danfoss that no longer receives security updates, a risk Claroty flagged in August.
Why it matters
This is a concrete case of end-of-life firmware on internet-facing devices turning into physical inventory loss: a vendor stopped shipping security updates, the settings were remotely changed to defrost, and stock was thrown out. If you deploy or integrate connected hardware (cold chain, retail, facilities) for clients, decide now what your documented support end date is, whether those devices sit on a segmented network rather than the open internet, and who eats the loss when a unit is bricked or spoofed — the article gives no CVE, firmware version or patch path, so there is no direct action item for software teams outside IoT/OT.
Discussion angle
Who should be liable when a vendor stops patching a connected device that a supermarket still relies on — and would your own device fleet survive that same question?