Danfoss urges taking refrigeration controls off the internet after the attacks on European supermarkets

Danfoss, the supplier of the refrigeration control software that the attackers used again on Monday, November 2, told Reuters that it has been in close contact with its customers for three weeks and recommends that these systems not be directly accessible from the internet. According to the agency, Monday's attack was identical to the one suffered by dozens of French supermarkets some three weeks earlier.

Reuters adds Germany to the list, where the Edeka chain suffered the attack on a fridge at a store in Reisbach, and the United Kingdom, where the attackers targeted small meat businesses with minimal impact. In Sweden, Ica told Reuters that its 23 affected stores had equipment connected outside the chain's central network, and Swedish police had counted about 10 reports since Monday. Coop attributes its exposure to the fact that the affected stores used 4G networks and is moving them to 5G; the number of affected Coop stores varies between six, according to Euronews, and seven, according to AFP.

The Italian government summoned the heads of its intelligence services and the National Cybersecurity Agency, according to AFP. The Italian authorities describe the impact as “very limited,” concentrated in a few stores with outdated security systems; in Sicily, Coop had four of its 300 stores affected, according to the same agency.

The head of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), Richard Horne, told Reuters that the attacks are an early sign of more frequent disruptions because old technology is not being brought up to date. The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, ENISA, stressed cooperation and sharing information quickly, according to Reuters.

No one has claimed the attacks, according to AFP. It is still not known who is behind them or whether all the cases have the same origin; the figures for affected countries differ between sources, from eight according to Reuters to eleven according to AFP.