A major cyberattack on Belgian supermarket 40 Delhaize, Carrefour and Spa and other supermarket chain stores has taken place, with €100,000 worth of food thrown away.
Dozens of Belgian supermarkets have been hit by a cyber attack that saw their refrigerators turned up to 70 degrees Celsius, resulting in €100,000 worth of food being thrown away, according to Belgian media reports on Monday.
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Some 40 Delhaize supermarkets, 15 Carrefour stores, and five Spar locations have reportedly been impacted. Butchery group De Laet en Van Haver also said that their fridges were affected.
"We have identified an IT incident affecting the refrigeration systems in several dozen stores. We immediately took the necessary measures to keep our stores operational," a spokesperson from Delhaize told Euronews.
Cybercriminals carried out the attack between Sunday night and Monday morning, skyrocketing refrigerator temperatures.
Problems reportedly also occurred at a number of stores of the Swedish supermarket chain ICA last night.
It follows a similar attack in France just weeks ago, on 12 October, when hundreds of French supermarkets belonging to the Intermarché and Coopérative U chains fell victim to a cyberattack targeting their refrigeration systems.
Stephan Moelans, CEO of refrigeration installer Sabcobel, told the Belga news outlet that the Belgian attack involves exactly the same mechanism as the previous French cyberattack.
"Over the past few weeks, we've been working very hard to protect our customers' fridges against this vulnerability," Moelans said.
The refrigeration executive said a software update alone is not enough to address the vulnerability, with physical modifications required instead.
"That requires investment. The simplest solution is to manage the fridges over a secure internet connection. Most of our customers switched to that after the attack in France."
Sabcobel know of around twenty affected units, out of the hundreds it manages across Belgium.
This is a developing story that our journalists are updating.
Euronews has reached out to Carrefour and Spa for comment.
