EU urges action as Germany, Romania and UK report supermarket cyberattacks

Hackers raised the temperatures of refrigeration systems at supermarkets in Germany, Romania and the United Kingdom during Monday's cyberattacks, authorities stated, bringing the number of European countries affected in the hacking spree to at least 11.

Key points

• Challenges were noted in at least nine EU countries on Monday: Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.
• "It seems semi-amateurish, " Dan Cimpean, the director of Romania's National Cyber Security Directorate, informed the AFP news agency.
• Giuseppe Spadaro, director of a group that runs Coop supermarkets in Sicily, remarked four of its 300 stores were hit, causing thousands of euros in damage.
• In the UK, hackers tried to target small meat-processing firms, but the impact was minimal, remarked Richard Horne, chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
• The announcements on Tuesday came as the European Union promised a collective response, warning that the attacks.

Meanwhile, the announcements on Tuesday came as the European Union promised a collective response, warning that the attacks. It have spoiled tonnes of food throughout the continent, were "not isolated".

Meanwhile, the motive for the cyberattacks is unknown, and no one has asserted responsibility. A Romanian official remarked he did not suspect a state actor.

Challenges were noted in at least nine EU countries on Monday: Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden. On Tuesday, authorities and business representatives noted four supermarkets in Germany and six in Romania were affected. The UK, which is not in the EU, was additionally hit.

Thomas Regnier, a spokesperson for the EU, remarked the bloc's agencies were talking with national authorities to develop a joint response.

"These are not isolated incidents, and of course, we have to be collectively resilient and prepared for such cyber incidents, " he remarked. But he refused to point the finger at any potential culprits. Romania's top cybersecurity official played down the threat.

"It seems semi-amateurish, " Dan Cimpean, the director of Romania's National Cyber Security Directorate, informed the AFP news agency. "We do not suspect, under any circumstances, that it is a state actor." He continued that "no other infrastructure was compromised".

Belgium was among the hardest-hit countries on Monday, with dozens of stores throughout a number of grocery chains reporting refrigeration failures. Federal prosecutors there have opened an investigation. In Italy, regarding 20 supermarkets were affected.

"We had to throw away everything. The shelves are empty, " he informed Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Italy's administration held negotiations with the heads of the intelligence services and the National Cybersecurity Agency on Tuesday after the attacks, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's office noted the incident had a "limited" impact.

"There is no cause for alarm, although all the relevant institutional bodies remain on high alert, " it remarked in an official note.

Horne informed the BBC the problem affected "the whole food supply chain", and that there had been a couple of instances where "vulnerable technology had been exploited".

For context, the second wave of attacks mirrored the cyberattack that swept hundreds of supermarkets throughout France in October. It additionally affected stores in a number of other European countries.

In Sweden, the supermarket chain Coop remarked that refrigerators and freezers affected overnight at seven of its stores had been connected to "old 4G networks", and that the stores had since resumed normal operations.

Carlos Cancinos, a spokesperson for the chain, remarked Coop had accelerated an upgrade, begun after the October attacks, to move its connected refrigeration equipment onto 5G networks and modern modems.

"This helps to solve a large share of problems of this kind, " he remarked.

Danfoss, a Danish maker of refrigeration controls whose systems were again among those targeted, remarked it had been in close contact with customers for the past three weeks. It recommended that the systems not be directly accessible from the internet.

Frank Groenewegen, a cybersecurity expert at Deloitte in The Hague, pressed retailers to check whether their refrigeration controllers were connected to the internet and running the latest security updates.

"And if they don't even know, then remove them from the public internet immediately, " he informed the Reuters news agency. "With disconnecting, you haven't fixed the root cause, but you've at least isolated those systems so that an attacker is not able to do this anymore."

In short, EU urges action as Germany, Romania and UK report supermarket cyberattacks is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.