A spate of cyber-attacks has hit supermarket chains across at least 10 European countries, prompting European Union officials to warn of a deliberate attempt to disrupt the food supply chain.
What happened
Supermarkets in Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, and Sweden have reported problems, with temperatures in some freezers rising as high as 50C. The attacks have forced retailers to discard food, with estimated losses in the tens of millions of euros.
The European Union's food and agriculture commissioner, Christophe Hansen, said the bloc is taking the incidents very seriously and warned of further disruption in the future. The EU's concerns come three weeks after a cyber-attack disrupted 700 French grocery stores.
In response to the attacks, the UK's National Cyber Security Centre has warned British retailers to update the software on fridge temperature controls, citing the likelihood of an AI-powered cyber-attack on critical national infrastructure within two years.
Individual countries have also responded to the attacks, with Italy's government calling a meeting with intelligence chiefs and Belgian federal prosecutors opening an investigation. The impact of the attacks has varied, with some countries reporting limited effects and others experiencing more significant disruptions.
