Cyberattack alters cooling settings at 17 or more Dutch firms

The temperature settings of refrigeration systems at no fewer than 17 businesses in the Netherlands were changed overnight, a spokesperson for the supplier Danfoss said. The systems are used at butchers and small neighbourhood shops, among others. As far as the company knows, large supermarket chains were not hit.

One affected company is a storage site for frozen products. "Those systems should normally be set to -20, but last night we found they were at -10. We were able to step in quickly," the spokesperson said.

According to the spokesperson, the systems attacked overnight were not on a secured network and had a default password. Danfoss advised Dutch customers on 13 October to disconnect the systems from the internet and reconnect only via a secured network. "Most shops took action then, but a few didn't," he said. Had measures been taken, he said, the attack could have been prevented.

It is the same kind of attack as one in France a few weeks ago, when Danfoss cooling systems in supermarkets were set to defrost mode, so the temperature slowly rose.

Cooling systems were also hit in Belgium, Luxembourg and Sweden, and supermarkets in Ireland and Estonia were targeted. In Belgium, Delhaize and Carrefour were among those affected. Carrefour said 15 of its 700 branches were hit.

Albert Heijn says a check showed its Dutch supermarkets are not affected. Last month its parent company, Ahold Delhaize, took systems offline as a precaution after a cyberattack. Distribution centres stood still and shelves were left empty. There is no evidence of a link with the cooling attacks.