October 19, 2026
Hackers Heated Up Supermarket Fridges Across France — and the Flaw Was Online for Months
On the night of October 11, 2026, refrigerators and freezers in hundreds of French supermarkets started warming up instead of cooling down. Attackers had forced the refrigeration systems into defrost mode, which heats the cooling parts to melt ice. Some units reached 50°C (122°F), a few caught fire, and stores across the country threw away their fresh and frozen food.
More than 400 stores were hit, including Carrefour, Intermarché, Netto, Monoprix, Leclerc, and Coopérative U, with losses possibly reaching several million euros. The common thread: refrigeration controllers made by Danish company Danfoss — mostly older AK-SM 800 and AK-SC 355 models — plus monitoring systems from Copeland and Dixell flagged by France’s cybersecurity agency CERT-FR.
The scary part is how long the door was open. IPinfo’s internet scans found 1,331 exposed Danfoss control dashboards in France — more than the rest of the world combined — and 85% ran software with known security flaws, including 527 controllers Danfoss no longer supports. Most had been reachable online for at least six months.
CERT-FR told operators to disconnect the affected controllers or lock down who can reach them, and warned that attack campaigns are probably still ongoing. The Paris prosecutor has opened an investigation. Nobody has said who did it or how they first got in.