After France, intruders now switch Belgian shop fridges to defrost
During the night from Sunday to Monday, temperatures rose in the fridges and freezers of dozens of supermarkets, including Delhaize, Carrefour and Intermarché.
Delhaize confirmed an IT incident affecting the refrigeration and freezer installations in part of its stores in Flanders and Wallonia. According to RetailDetail, at least 40 Delhaize shops are involved, mainly Shop & Go stores at Q8 petrol stations and Proxy stores. Around 15 Carrefour shops, some fifteen Intermarché branches and a few Spar stores also ran into problems. Butcher chain De Laet & Van Haver found that someone had changed the settings of its refrigeration from outside, but intervened in time.
Reports on the temperatures differ. RetailDetail refers to RTL Info, which mentioned around 15 degrees, while The Register writes that units were reportedly pushed up to 50 degrees. According to The Register, shops in Sweden and Ireland were also hit, including stores of ICA, Coop and SuperValu, and at least one Delhaize shop had to throw away all its fresh and frozen products.
It is not known who is behind the attacks. In mid-October, hundreds of supermarkets in France were hit in a similar way. There, at least some of the stores were running outdated firmware on Danfoss refrigeration controllers, about which the French CERT-FR issued a warning, The Register reports. Whether the same method was used in Belgium remains unclear.