Hackers Turned Down the Cold: Europe's Fridge Attacks Reach UK Supply Chains

On Monday 2 November 2026, supermarkets in at least 10 European countries reported cyber-attacks that remotely raised refrigerator and freezer temperatures, forcing food to be discarded. Affected countries included Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Germany and Sweden. Temperatures reportedly rose as high as 50C (122F) in some stores.

Around 40 Delhaize supermarkets in Belgium and Luxembourg were affected, with smaller numbers in Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Finland. Sabcobel, a Belgian manufacturer of some affected refrigerators, said the units' evaporators were switched to defrost mode, causing them to warm up — believed to be the same method used in an earlier incident.

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre said it was aware of "a couple of instances where vulnerable technology had been exploited in the UK" and had "worked through the night" to alert organisations. The British Association of Independent Meat Suppliers said some of its more than 300 members became "collateral" — two saw fridges defrost and another saw cold units rise to 100C (212F), though the affected devices were empty so no produce was lost.

No-one has admitted carrying out the attacks. The incident follows a cyber-attack three weeks earlier that disrupted as many as 700 French grocery stores, with food losses estimated at tens of millions of euros.

The attacks show that internet-connected refrigeration — a mundane but critical part of the food supply chain — can be remotely manipulated at scale, causing food waste and disruption across borders. The UK's involvement, even if limited, signals that the same vulnerable technology is present in British supply chains, raising questions about resilience and the security of connected industrial devices.