The Pentagon is investigating hackers' link to rogue freezers. More cyberattacks are hitting Europe – Fortune

The Pentagon is investigating hackers’ link to rogue freezers. More cyberattacks are hitting Europe  Fortune

Last month, hundreds of French grocery store freezers were hacked. In August, half a dozen U.S. military commissaries experienced similar outages. Lightning may not strike the same place twice, but hackers appear to be targeting the same systems, as refrigeration becomes the next frontier for cyberattacks. About 20 refrigerator systems in supermarkets Delhaize, Carrefour and Spar experienced outages late Sunday night into Monday morning, Stephan Moelans, CEO of refrigeration installer Sabcobel, told Belgium’s Belga News Agency on Monday. Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet reported similar outages in Swedish chains ICA and Coop, with outages also reported in Luxembourg and Estonia. “We began mobilizing technicians at 1 a.m. to get the situation under control,” Moelans said.

“We’ve been working all night and morning to disconnect the affected units from the network.” He noted this wave of suspected cyberattacks mirrored the hacking of hundreds of French supermarkets last month, when the temperature of grocery stores’ refrigerators and freezers was raised, spoiling food and causing small fires. Those supermarkets included 80 Carrefour locations, about 24 Monoprix locations, and 150 Intermarche locations. Hackers left the same calling card in the latest attacks. One location of a Swedish grocery store, ICA Kvantum Sjöbo, said in a Facebook post that its refrigerators and freezers were hacked overnight, and the temperature of the devices were set to 50