Supermarket refrigeration systems in several European countries were remotely reset to temperatures as high as 50°C, while France’s blood-storage equipment, airline operations and broadcasters were also affected by separate cyberattacks or bomb threats. The incidents put food and medical supplies at risk and disrupted transport and media operations. No public findings have identified those responsible, or confirmed that the events were connected.
Supermarket systems reset to 50°C
On Monday, supermarkets in Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden and the Netherlands found that some refrigeration systems had been set to temperatures of up to 50°C (122°F). Retailers affected included Ahold Delhaize, IKEA, Colruyt Group and Carrefour. The heat could spoil food, leaving retailers to deal with potentially damaged stock.
The incidents follow a similar attack in October that affected hundreds of French supermarkets, where freezers overheated and food spoiled; some locations also experienced fires. French blood-storage refrigeration systems were targeted afterward. Because cooling equipment is essential to both food supply and blood storage, disruption can extend beyond the immediate losses of an individual business.
Fredrik Blix, an associate professor at Stockholm University and a cybersecurity expert, said some refrigeration control systems are directly connected to the public internet and protected only by default passwords or credentials that are easy to guess. That can leave them vulnerable without requiring sophisticated techniques, he said. Blix also warned that publicity around the incidents could encourage copycat attacks. State or state-backed actors cannot be ruled out, he said, but the activity could also be an attempt to test system limits or a prank.
No confirmed link to suspected sabotage
Sidharth Kaushal, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the supermarket incidents should be viewed against a broader pattern of suspected sabotage and hybrid threats in Europe. He cited damage to undersea cables in the Baltic Sea, death threats against executives at European defence companies and a bomb discovered aboard a DHL cargo plane in 2024.
If the supermarket attacks were linked to Russia, Kaushal said, one possible aim could be to make European policymakers feel the cost of continuing to support Ukraine. There is no evidence so far that Russia carried out the attacks.
Hybrid tactics can combine cyberattacks, sabotage and disinformation to disrupt society without triggering open military conflict. Europe’s preparedness varies, Kaushal said. Finland and Sweden draw on experience built during the Cold War and have more developed civil-defence systems, while much of Europe’s infrastructure was designed primarily for economic efficiency, with less emphasis on resilience. NATO increased its focus on the security of undersea cables and gas pipelines after the Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged in 2022.
Oana Popescu-Zamfir, a RUSI researcher focused on European security, said Europe had been slow to adapt to the changed security environment and could face further hybrid attacks carried out through proxy networks. Attacks on connected systems can cause tangible damage, including disruption to blood supplies, while also heightening public concern about the protection of everyday services. Links between the actors and the Kremlin may not be direct, she said, making responsibility harder to establish.
Responsibility for securing systems is unclear
Blix said businesses could start with basic safeguards: industrial control systems and other operational technology should not be exposed directly to the internet without appropriate security measures. But responsibility is divided among equipment manufacturers, maintenance providers and retailers. Maintenance companies may enable remote access for convenience, while retailers may not set sufficiently strong cybersecurity requirements for suppliers. Those overlapping roles can make it harder to close vulnerabilities and determine accountability.
Europe has also seen protests, riots and strikes over the cost of living. Alexander Anderson, president and policy director of the Center for International Security and Economic Strategy, cautioned against too readily attributing genuine domestic grievances to foreign interference. Russian influence operations, and potentially those involving China, may seek to amplify social divisions, he said, but that does not mean all unrest is externally driven.
Protests and strikes in France have added pressure on the government to manage public finances. Across Europe, high energy prices, persistent inflation, weak growth and budget deficits are weighing on economies, while rising borrowing costs leave governments with less room to support households under strain. Responsibility for the refrigeration attacks, flight threats and other incidents remains unresolved. For businesses and consumers, the immediate questions are whether affected services have been restored and whether the systems that support them are adequately protected.