By Jenny Che | Updated on Oct 12, 2026 at 02:22 PM
Hundreds of supermarkets in France were targeted by cyberattacks on Sunday night, disabling refrigeration systems and forcing stores to throw out damaged food.
Around 150 Intermarché stores were hit, a spokesman for owner Groupement Mousquetaires told Bloomberg. Hackers accessed cooling systems and set them to defrost, with refrigerators and freezers heating to 50 degrees Celsius for around six hours. Meat, frozen items and vegetables had to be tossed out.
Mousquetaires said the systems were managed by Danfoss and that it would be up to the supplier to file a complaint with authorities.
Cooperative U was also hit by the cyberattacks, CEO Dominique Schelcher said on X. Fewer than a hundred of its stores were affected, Agence France-Presse reported. Some Leclerc stores were also targeted, BFM said .
Leclerc didn’t immediately respond to a Bloomberg request for comment.
In August, cybersecurity researchers at Team82 wrote a report flagging vulnerabilities in Danfoss controllers used to manage refrigeration in supermarkets and other cold storage facilities. The group said it had found a hidden authentication mechanism that could be used to tamper with the operations of refrigeration systems.