Hackers pushed freezers at hundreds of French supermarkets to 122 degrees. Now the Pentagon is asking whether the same thing hit U.S. military bases

The Pentagon is investigating potential cyberattacks on U.S. military commissaries following a similar incident in French supermarkets. Hackers recently targeted refrigeration controls at hundreds of French supermarkets, causing the temperature to rise to over 122 degrees Fahrenheit and leading to food spoilage and fires. The affected stores included Carrefour, Monoprix, and Intermarche outlets across Paris and other European cities.

While there is no concrete evidence linking the two incidents, the timing and nature of the failures have raised concerns among cybersecurity experts.

Christopher Whyte, a homeland security professor, noted that hackers often exploit refrigeration systems due to their direct impact on financial losses and the difficulty of rectifying spoiled food and other damaged products. The Pentagon is partnering with French authorities to investigate the French supermarket outages as part of a joint probe into similar refrigerator outages at U.S. military commissaries in August.

Over half a dozen bases were affected, including installations in California, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Arkansas, Wyoming, Georgia, and Arizona. These commissaries provide subsidized goods to military personnel, costing around 25% less than civilian grocery stores. The Substack Signal and Silence first reported the possibility of a cyberattack causing the outages, but the Pentagon declined to comment on ongoing investigations due to security reasons.