Thawing ice cream and spoiled frozen goods greeted staff at dozens of Belgian supermarkets on Monday morning after someone tampered overnight with the computer systems that run their fridges and freezers. Local outlets estimate the spoiled stock that had to be binned at about €100,000.
Delhaize bore the brunt, with about 40 outlets hit across the Dutch- and French-speaking halves of the country, many of them small convenience stores at petrol stations. Carrefour Belgium is reported to have around 15 hit stores and Spar about five, and settings were altered as well at butcher’s shops belonging to De Laet & Van Haver. Freezers warmed up more than fridges. Delhaize spoke of an “IT incident” and said it acted at once so that its shops could stay open; during the night it had already texted its store managers to look out for sudden temperature spikes.
The attack looks like a repeat. Less than three weeks earlier, cooling equipment in hundreds of French grocery stores belonging to two big chains was sabotaged in much the same way. Stephan Moelans, who runs Sabcobel, a Belgian company that fits commercial cooling units, said in comments to Belga that the method matched exactly, and warned that patching software is not enough. Hardware changes are needed, he said, the simplest being to manage the units only over a secure connection, a step most of his customers took after the French incident. His firm counts around twenty affected units among the hundreds it looks after.
Belgium was not alone. Swedish grocers ICA and Coop reported similar trouble with their cooling equipment the same night. Who is behind the attacks has not been established, and none of the retailers has named a suspect.
