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Supermarkets across Europe faced another wave of cyberattacks after hackers remotely manipulated refrigeration systems, sharply raising temperatures and forcing retailers to discard food. At least one store reported temperatures reaching 50°C (122°F), intensifying concern across the retail industry.

Dutch supermarket group Ahold Delhaize said refrigeration systems at dozens of Delhaize stores in Belgium and Luxembourg were affected on Monday. The disruption resulted in food being discarded, although the company said conditions later returned to normal and the stores were fully operational.

Colruyt Group said five Spar stores in Belgium were targeted, according to Reuters. Carrefour told the BBC that 15 stores in Belgium were attacked, while Intermarché said 15 of its 153 Belgian stores were affected.

“In most cases, the security measures in place made it possible to quickly contain the attack,” an Intermarché spokesperson told CNBC. The spokesperson said several stores suffered stock losses, though the damage was not comparable with an attack in mid October.

Intermarché said the available information indicated that most of the attack affected other businesses in the sector, particularly Carrefour and Delhaize. Carrefour did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

IKEA said a cyber incident affected refrigerators and freezers at its Mons store in Belgium between Sunday and Monday. The store remained open while the company inspected the affected equipment and products and reviewed installations at its other Belgian locations.

“The incident has a limited impact on the offering in our restaurant and Swedish Food Market,” an IKEA spokesperson said over email. “We are continuing our investigation to determine exactly what happened.”

ICA, Sweden’s largest grocery retailer, said it had been informed of an incident affecting a limited number of stores operating on networks outside its central systems. The company said refrigeration and freezer systems were affected and that it was supporting the stores as they managed the disruption.

Finnish supermarket Kesko, Irish grocery chain Supervalu and Estonian grocer One Selver also reported problems with refrigeration systems. The spread of disruptions across several countries heightened scrutiny of remotely managed equipment used by retailers.

The EU Commission said it was in direct contact with national authorities investigating the incident. It also convened a meeting of the EU interinstitutional Task Force with EU agencies ENISA and Europol and relevant Commission services.

The attacks followed a cyberattack against hundreds of French supermarkets in October that caused fires, overheated refrigerators and spoiled food. Intermarché owner Les Mousquetaires said at the time that it expected damages totaling several million euros.

Commissaries at six U.S. military bases also experienced freezer malfunctions in late August. The Pentagon was treating those incidents as a suspected hack and coordinating with French authorities, four people familiar with the matter told Reuters in October.

No group or other bad actor has claimed the attacks, and investigations remain underway. Rafe Pilling, senior director of threat intelligence at Sophos Counter Threat Unit, said it remained unclear whether cyber criminals or attackers with other intentions were responsible.

Pilling said empty supermarket refrigerators can create a powerful psychological image, making a relatively small cyberattack appear like a broader societal disruption. He said people quickly associate empty stores with shortages and crisis, meaning visibility can matter to attackers as much as financial damage.

Fredrik Blix, strategic cybersecurity advisor for Visente AB, said the attack itself was not sophisticated because refrigerator control units were directly connected to the public internet. He said built in support logins were available and passwords could be obtained on the same day, based on researcher information published in August.

“The vendor patched it in August,” Blix wrote in a LinkedIn post. “Thousands of units never got the update, and the oldest models can’t be updated at all.”

Blix said the silence surrounding the attacks was the most interesting clue because, in his view, it ruled out ransomware crews. He suggested the attacker either acted simply because it was possible or sought to create “unease in Ukraine-supporting countries without leaving fingerprints.”

Pilling said banks, governments, manufacturers, utilities and retailers all depend on connected systems that can be managed remotely. He warned that attackers do not necessarily require extraordinary capabilities if they locate an exposed system controlling something important in the physical world.

There is no evidence that AI played a role in these refrigeration attacks. However, Pilling said criminals elsewhere have used AI to increase the speed, scale and efficiency of attacks, and he expects the technology to play a larger role in orchestrating and executing similar operations.

The U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre warned Tuesday that critical national infrastructure should prepare for ransomware attacks involving malware powered by AI, which it said would become increasingly likely over the next two years. CEO Richard Horne called for urgent investment and for organizations to treat security and resilience as fundamental requirements rather than afterthoughts.

DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.