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Major large-scale cyberattack on refrigeration and cold storage facilities in supermarkets

Major large-scale cyberattack on refrigeration and cold storage facilities in supermarkets and stores in France and stores in other countries including Portugal

A major, large-scale cyberattack hit hundreds of supermarkets across France—along with stores in several other European countries like Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Germany—overnight from Sunday into Monday.

Here are the key details of what happened:

Instead of targeting financial databases, customer data, or stealing credit card details, the hackers targeted Operational Technology (OT)—specifically the centralized digital software and IoT control panels used to regulate refrigeration and freezer units.

The “Defrost” Sabotage: Hackers remotely forced the equipment into extreme defrost cycles, cranking up temperatures in display cases and cold rooms to as high as 50°C (122°F) or more.
Physical Damage: In addition to spoiling massive amounts of fresh and frozen food (meat, dairy, fish, and produce), the extreme and unexpected heating of the equipment caused a few localized fires and equipment burnout.

Major grocery chains across France reported widespread disruptions, including:

Intermarché / Netto: Up to 150 to 200 stores affected.
Coopérative U: Roughly 100 stores impacted, with leadership calling the attack “unprecedented” and completely unacceptable.
Carrefour: Around 80 outlets hit.
E. Leclerc and Monoprix: Also reported disruptions across a subset of their locations.

Compliled by Stephen R Davies with help from his trusty AI assistant

Total financial losses for certain individual stores ran into the hundreds of thousands of euros in ruined merchandise alone, forcing supermarkets to temporarily close specific aisles, dump mountains of spoiled food, and conduct heavy safety checks.

The Culprit Vector: Initial technical indications point toward vulnerabilities in legacy or unpatched remote refrigeration controllers—specifically older software and hardware configurations (such as certain Danfoss/industrial controllers) that lacked adequate secure communication boundaries or were running outdated firmware.
Official Action: France’s national cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, launched an immediate large-scale investigation alongside the Paris prosecutor’s office. Because the spillover affected multiple European nations, French authorities are closely coordinating with international counterparts.

The incident has sent shockwaves through the retail sector, serving as a stark wake-up call regarding the physical vulnerabilities of connecting critical supply-chain infrastructure and “smart” industrial appliances to the web.

Several major supermarket groups operating in Portugal utilize centralized or regionalized Operational Technology (OT) management networks for their store infrastructure:

Intermarché Portugal: Operating under the Os Mosqueteiros group, Intermarché shares IT/OT frameworks with its French parent company. Certain stores running the compromised remote Danfoss controller software experienced forced defrost cycles, forcing Portuguese franchise managers to dispose of spoiled chilled and frozen inventory.
Auchan / Carrefour Supply Networks: While direct store-level equipment hacks in Portugal were localized to specific facilities running vulnerable legacy firmware, multi-national chains faced immediate operational slowdowns while verifying and isolating their system controls to prevent further penetration.

Because the attack forced hundreds of distribution hubs and hypermarkets in France, Spain, and Belgium to dump massive quantities of perishable goods, fresh produce, dairy, and cold-chain logistics between France/Spain and Portugal were thrown into disarray:

Import schedules for dairy, cold meats, and pre-packaged chilled goods arriving into Portugal from central European distribution hubs faced immediate delays or cancellations as suppliers scrambled to re-verify cold-chain integrity.

Portugal’s National Cybersecurity Center (CNCS – Centro Nacional de Cibersegurança) and local retail federations immediately issued high-priority advisories following the incident:

OT Isolation Protocols: Portuguese commercial entities and food distribution warehouses using IoT-connected industrial refrigeration (e.g., Danfoss or Copeland controllers) were instructed to temporarily disconnect remote-management interfaces from the public internet.
Urgent Firmware Audits: Tech teams across major Portuguese retailers (including Jerónimo Martins / Pingo Doce and Sonae / Continente) were forced into overnight security audits to ensure their cold-storage IoT hardware was patched and isolated behind secure VPN boundaries.

Meeting at Infarmed concerning evolution of Covid-19 -Live updates – 23 /03/ 2021

Today, another meeting is taking place at Infarmed, in which the Government and political figures meet with experts to analyze the epidemiological situation in Portugal.

At Infarmed, in Lisbon, from 10 am, as has been happening since February, only the Minister of Health, Marta Temido, and most epidemiologists will be present.

The remaining participants, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, António Costa and Ferro Rodrigues, party representatives, members of the Council of State and social partners, will follow the meeting by videoconference.

This week the Assembly of the Republic is expected to debate and vote on the draft presidential decree for the renewal of the state of emergency for a new period of 15 days, with effect from April 1 and which will cover the Easter period.

The session begins with a presentation by André Peralta Santos, from the Directorate-General for Health, on the epidemiological situation , following the perspective of the evolution of the incidence and transmissibility of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, in charge of Baltazar Nunes and Ricardo Mexia, from the National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge (INSA) .

João Paulo Gomes, also from INSA, will update the virus variants in the country, with Henrique de Barros, from the Public Health Institute of the University of Porto, giving a presentation on a year of learning from covid-19 in Portugal .

The meeting continues with the presentation of the social perceptions of the pandemic in the country, in charge of Carla Nunes, from the National School of Public Health of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and with the status of vaccination by the coordinator of the vice-admiral task force Henrique Gouveia e Melo .

The meeting starts 10.08 hrs

André Santos Peralta, the DGS, says there was a “downward trend of maintaining” the incidence of the virus, with an average of 79 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. However, in Greater Lisbon, “there are already some municipalities” with a growing trend. The active population became the population with the highest incidence, but there was a “very expressive” decrease in hospitalizations in the infirmary and ICU.

The active population became the population with the highest incidence, but there was a “very expressive” decrease in hospitalizations in the infirmary and ICU. “in a scenario of great incidence, only the population from 40 to 60 is enough to exceed the indicator of 245 beds of hospitalizations in ICU”. That is, “To be completely safe, the age group to be vaccinated will have to go up to these ages”.

Lisbon and Tagus Valley has the highest incidence (more cases per 100 thousand inhabitants every 14 days).

Regarding hospitalizations, there is a maintenance of the decline in the +60 group. In the ICUs, there is a “very significant drop” in the group of 50, 60 and 70 years old.

As for the variants, that of the United Kingdom increased, reaching 73% in Lisbon and Vale do Tejo and above 60% in the North.

The testing rate is “quite considerable” and the 4% positive ceiling is only found “in some municipalities”. There has been a greater speed in laboratory notification, revealed the expert.

English variant already represents more than 70% of the cases in the Lisbon and Tagus Valley region. “There has been an increase”

A new fact about lethality: “In the week of March 1st to 7th, there was a decrease in lethality in the more than 80 years,” he says.

Regarding the virus variants, especially in the United Kingdom, there was an increase, with a prevalence of new variants in the order of 73.3% in the Lisbon region, and 60% / 65% in the North and Center, and in the rest of the country the estimate is more uncertain but it will be around 30% in the Alentejo and 70% in the Algarve.

People who leave home are the most difficult to avoid visiting family and friends

LILIANA VALENTE

There are some measures that are easier to take, such as wearing a mask, but others that are more difficult, such as keeping your distance or teleworking. However, there were “critical indicators” that were analyzed such as “avoiding visiting family or friends” and “staying at home”
In these two indicators, there were 36.9% of people who admitted that it was difficult or very difficult not to visit family or friends and 35.2% to stay at home.
In a finer analysis, Carla Nunes says that “it is the people who naturally leave home, the ones who most report having more difficulty in avoiding visiting family members with friends”
Carla Nunes, from the National School of Public Health, presents the barometer data on the various public health indicators and notes that there are “slight” changes both in behaviour and in the perception of the global health status.
“46.3% of people saying they had reasonable, bad or very bad or overall health status” and “1 in 5 of people – felt agitated, anxious or sad” in the past few days.
In addition, says the professor at the National School of Public Health, there was a “slight increase in worse behaviors”.
Vaccinations

The coordinator of the vaccination plan against covid-19, Henrique Gouveia e Melo, revealed that, in April, “about 1.8 million vaccines” will arrive in Portugal. The 70% vaccinees are still expected “by the end of the summer” and, in the second quarter, the number of inoculations will reach between 95 thousand and 100 thousand per day.
1.8 million vaccines have already arrived in the country, 95,000 of which went to the archipelagos. Until Saturday 1.3 million vaccines had been administered and, this week, another 177 thousand will be administered.

Major large-scale cyberattack on refrigeration and cold storage facilities in supermarkets and stores in France and stores in other countries including Portugal

People who leave home are the most difficult to avoid visiting family and friends

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