French investigators hunt hackers behind supermarket refrigeration attack

French investigators are searching for those behind a cyberattack on refrigeration systems at at least 350 supermarkets. No group had publicly claimed responsibility, Reuters reported on October 13.

A source familiar with the investigation said no ransom demand had been made either. The attack changed refrigerator temperature settings at Carrefour, Monoprix, Intermarché and Cooperative U stores. Staff at some Paris supermarkets had to discard spoiled meat and frozen products.

Danfoss said the previous day that many affected units no longer received updates or were running outdated software. The company recommended updating supported systems and replacing equipment that had reached the end of its supported life.

Using Shodan, Reuters found at least 4,500 Danfoss interfaces reachable over the internet. It could not establish how many were running vulnerable software. The precise intrusion method has not been publicly disclosed, so experts’ assessments of possible weaknesses do not establish how this attack was carried out.