Hackers heat French supermarket fridges to 50C in 'large-scale' cyber attack

Hackers carried out a cyber attack on hundreds of French supermarkets overnight - pushing temperatures in fridges up to 50C and sparking fires.

Les Mousquetaires, which ⁠owns retailer Intermarche, said that approximately 150 of its stores were affected, with the retail group forced to throw all the food away.

Monoprix, which operates around 490 ​stores in France, said 5% of them were affected - along with 80 Carrefour supermarkets.

Cooperative U was also targeted in the attack, CEO Dominique Schelcher confirmed.

He said that teams had been "fully mobilised" to resolve "the situation as quickly as possible".

Mr Schelcher posted on X: "Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is of extreme gravity and is unprecedented. It is unacceptable."

Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium have also been affected, according to Felix Aime, a senior cyber threat intelligence analyst ​at Sekoia Threat Detection and Research.

Paris resident Geert de Clercq saw ​Intermarche staff in Paris throwing cartfuls of defrosted food into a giant bin, with broken ice cream tubs littering the street.

The Paris prosecutor's office called the incident a "large-scale" ‌attack, which has resulted in "food losses and fires".

France's Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has tasked the country's National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) with investigating the cyber attack.

A person in his office said France "was coordinating with its European counterparts, as other countries may also be affected".

Dutch supermarket operator Ahold Delhaize - which controls the Netherlands' biggest supermarket chain Albert Heijn and is the fourth-largest grocery retailer in the US - also took several systems offline as it contended with a "security issue" in its network.

Albert Heijn's app and delivery system went down, with customers told there had been a "cybersecurity incident".

It is unclear if there are any links between the issues reported by Ahold Delhaize and the cyber attack in France.

Websites for US retailers Stop & Shop, Giant, Hannaford and Food Lion stores also carried messages saying "site temporarily down".

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ANSSI had identified a vulnerability in software supplied by Danish company Danfoss, a source close to the French prime minister told Reuters news agency.

Danfoss said that affected stores in France "were running outdated firmware" and that it had "long advised customers to keep supported systems updated with the latest firmware".

Sky News has approached Danfoss for comment.

(c) Sky News 2026: Hackers heat French supermarket fridges to 50C in 'large-scale' cyber attack