Cyberattacks Knock Out Freezers at Dozens of Swedish, Belgian Stores
In Sweden, the disruption hit several ICA stores, most of them in the southern region of Skane, along with outlets on the island of Oland and in Varmland and Stockholm. Six Coop stores in the regions of Gastrikland and Halsingland were also affected.
At ICA Nara in Boda, on Oland, store manager Mats Olsson said he arrived to find water covering the floor and a freezer temperature reading of 55C (131F). The refrigeration units had reportedly been shut off, leaving food spoiled.
At an ICA store in Sankt Olof, manager Dennis Vidal said staff were scrambling to limit the damage.
“Right now we are emptying the freezers, there is not much else to do. They are about to get cold again, but everything is ruined,” he said.
ICA press officer Gustaf Nilsson said the company was investigating the overnight outage and helping affected stores.
“We are aware that a limited number of stores have been affected by an incident during the night that affects their refrigeration and freezing systems,” he said.
Nilsson added that the connections of the affected stores sat outside ICA’s central network.
Similar trouble surfaced elsewhere in Europe. Dozens of Delhaize, Carrefour and Spar supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg were hit by an IT incident.
The attack began around midnight Sunday, Stephan Moelans, CEO of refrigeration installer Sabcobel, told a Belgian news agency. The company knows of around 20 affected refrigeration units out of the hundreds it manages across Belgium.
According to Moelans, the attackers remotely switched the units’ evaporators into defrost mode, causing the refrigerators to warm up and potentially ruining food supplies.
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