A large-scale cyberattack disrupted cooling systems at shops belonging to several major food retail chains in France, damaging products and prompting an investigation by the cybercrime unit of the French public prosecution service.
150 Les Mousquetaires shops affected
A spokesperson for the Les Mousquetaires retail group said on Monday that hackers had switched refrigerators and freezers into defrost mode overnight. The spokesperson added that around 150 of the group’s shops in different parts of France had been affected by the attack. The group includes chains such as Intermarché and Netto.
Media reports indicated that other retail chains had also been targeted and that hundreds of shops were affected, while the temperature of some cooling systems rose to 50 degrees Celsius. The spokesperson said the attack targeted a Danish software company whose services are used by several food retail chains.
According to the spokesperson, affected shops will have to dispose of large quantities of food after the cooling systems stopped working, although the full extent of the damage caused by the attack has not yet been determined. The cybercrime unit of the French public prosecution service took charge of the investigation, and the unit also said it had received reports of several fires occurring at the same time as the attack.
