Investigators hunt French supermarket fridge hackers, no claim of responsibility

French investigators are currently searching for the hackers responsible for a cyberattack that compromised the cooling units of hundreds of supermarkets across the country. However, no group has publicly claimed responsibility for the attack, which has left experts puzzled. Typically, such groups are known to publicly claim responsibility for their actions, either to seek notoriety or to extort a ransom.

The cyberattack, which affected supermarkets including Carrefour, Monoprix, Intermarche, and Cooperative U, involved manually overriding the temperatures of the fridges, causing perishable goods to spoil. The affected fridges used outdated software from Danish firm Danfoss, which had reached the end of its support period and was running older firmware versions.

Experts say that the vulnerabilities in the outdated software were well-known, and that attackers likely exploited these weaknesses by exposing device interfaces to the internet. Although the specific method used to compromise the refrigerators has not been publicly disclosed, cybersecurity experts believe that the attack was relatively easy to carry out, making it a clear example of basic cyber hygiene failures.