A European Union spokesman announced on Tuesday that the European Commission held two emergency meetings following the cyber attack that targeted refrigerators on Monday. The first meeting was devoted to discussing the repercussions of the attack with the Union’s inter-institutional working group on electronic security, which includes Union agencies, including Europol, while the second meeting was coordinated through a cooperation network linking the national authorities of member states to manage large-scale electronic crises.

Published on: 03/11/2026 - 14:54

The European Commission held two meetings on Tuesday following the cyber attack that targeted refrigerators on Monday, according to what a European Union spokesman announced.

The first meeting was held with the European Union inter-institutional working group on cybersecurity, which includes European Union institutions and agencies, including Europol.

The second meeting was coordinated through a cooperation network linking the national authorities of the European Union member states responsible for managing large-scale cyber incidents and crises.

European Union Commissioner for Food and Agriculture, Christoph Hansen, said that the bloc takes these incidents “very seriously,” describing the repeated attacks as “deeply worrying.”

Read also: From refrigerators to cars... How can hackers hack devices connected to the Internet?

The European Union warned Monday of attempts to target food supply chains, after grocery stores in several countries witnessed a rise in temperatures inside refrigeration units, in what are suspected to be cyber attacks similar to those that targeted France in October.

The latest attack, attributed to hackers, affected stores in at least nine countries: Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden, Portugal, and Italy, forcing them to get rid of food that was damaged or was at risk of spoilage.

Read also: An “unprecedented” cyber attack targeting the cooling systems of French supermarket chains, with losses estimated at millions

The largest retail companies in France announced on October 12 that hundreds of refrigeration systems in their stores had been subjected to a cyber attack, forcing them to throw away large quantities of food. No group has claimed responsibility for last month's attack or the attacks that occurred Monday.

He saw it as "a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply chain and undermine consumer confidence in it, and it serves as a warning that we must take seriously."

The unrest centered on Monday in Belgium, where the authorities announced the opening of an investigation, without conclusively confirming that what happened were electronic hacking attacks. However, some of the affected parties were decisive in confirming the circumstances of the incidents.

The Carrefour chain in Belgium announced a disruption in about 15 of its 700 stores. Its spokesman, Mich Verguin, said: “It is a cyber attack. There is no other reason.”

An IKEA Belgium spokeswoman also said that a cyber attack targeted the chain's branch in Mons, in the southwest of the country, which led to a sudden rise in refrigerator temperatures in the early hours of the morning.

Retail chains Delhaize, Colruyt and Intermarche also reported that the cooling systems in their stores were affected by technical problems. Delhaize announced that four of its stores in Luxembourg were also affected.

The Belgian group "Sabcobel", which specializes in industrial cooling systems, said that it began securing its facilities after the attack in France, but about 10% of the systems had not yet been updated, and some of them were in the affected stores on Monday.

France 24/AFP

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