EU says fridge attacks 'deliberate attempt to disrupt' bloc's food supply

Supermarkets across Europe had to throw away products after temperatures rose too high in their fridges overnight. The suspected cyber attacks at stores in Belgium, Ireland, Sweden and Luxembourg exactly three weeks after France saw similar incidents. It's been condemned as a deliberate attempt to disrupt the European Union's food supplies. Awfully Jacobson has more on this. In this grocery store in Sweden, shelves are empty and carts are full of spoiled food after temperatures in these fridges and freezers spiked overnight. Some organization has hacked into the temperature monitoring system for our refrigerators and freezers. It's a form of terrorism, really. This store manager estimates they've had to throw out thousands of euros worth of food. Sweden's National Cyber Security Center says It's working on several incidents across the country. Customers say the situation is strange. It's scary that we are so vulnerable if, in fact, so many stores have been taking out in a single night across different countries simultaneously. Dozens of stores across Europe were also hit by suspected cyberattacks overnight. Around 40 Delhaize supermarkets and 15 Carrefour stores were affected in Belgium and 13 super value shops in Ireland, including this one in Dublin, where a sign blamed a technical issue for the scarce supply of chilled products. In a statement made to France 24, a spokesperson for the Irish Musgrave Group confirms as of Monday afternoon the cyber incident has been fully resolved and replenishment of food is well underway. Stores in Luxembourg also reported problems. The new wave of attacks comes three weeks after hackers seized control of cooling units at hundreds of supermarkets in France. So it looks very, very similar to what we have seen a few weeks ago. Those are typical similar brands. It's a similar way of operation. European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Christophe Hansen says the fridge cyber attacks are a deliberate attempt to disrupt the European Union's food supply. Let's bring in our correspondents in the heart of the European Union. Dave Keating waiting for us in Brussels. Dave, good evening to you. Any further developments, any further news on how all this happened? Well we still don't know who was behind it and if it's necessarily related to that similar cyber attack on fridges in France last month but the scope of this this time is much much greater than that attack in France because it involves six countries stretching all the way from Sweden and Finland over to Ireland to here in Belgium affecting some of our biggest retailers here in Here in Belgium, Delhaize, Carrefour, in Sweden, Co-op, ICA, some of the biggest grocery stores in Europe. But no one has taken responsibility for it. No one has claimed credit neither for the attack in France last month nor for this attack today. But of course the suspicion is that this involves Russia. Now nobody wants to come out and say that openly as long as they do not have proof because there is no proof so far about who might be behind this. However this is This is exactly the type of so-called hybrid warfare That the European Commission behind me has been warning about and we had this statement from the Agriculture Commissioner referenced there in the package. Commissioner Christoph Hansen calling this a deliberate attempt to disrupt our food supply and undermine consumers' confidence in it. He said this is a warning that the EU needs to take seriously, and the repeated occurrence of these cyber attacks is deeply concerning. So they're trying to get to the bottom of this, but cybersecurity experts say it's going to be very, very hard to actually nail down and prove that this was Russia or that it was anyone else. Because once you get into these systems, And as the EU is pointing out, a possible attack on Europe's food security going here. It's a lot of food going to waste. Yeah, I mean, just on a very practical level, this cost these retailers a lot of money and it inconvenienced a lot of people today who showed up to the grocery store and found the fridges completely empty. They weren't able to buy any meat, not just big grocery stores, by the way, some like small butchers and things like this here in Belgium, really, you know, SMEs, small and medium sized businesses. And that is really the design of this type of hybrid warfare. It's to make individual citizens really feel the pain and think twice about... Supporting their government, supporting Ukraine. That is, again, if Russia is behind this, which we have no evidence of so far. But the idea is really for people to feel the pinch, to affect those individual consumers going to the store, undermine their confidence, and try to make the population at large say, you know what, I don't think it's worth going against Russia to do this, or Or whoever might be behind it, Iran, whatever country could be acting behind this. It is interesting to point out that sometimes these types of attacks on retailers are performed by people who want to ransom. They basically say to the retailer, OK, hand us over this and we will turn your temperatures back down in your freezers. But again, because there has been no claim of responsibility, no attempt to ransom because of these two attacks, the one last month in France and this one today, cybersecurity experts Experts say they do suspect a state actor is involved here Dave Keating in Brussels, as always, thank you very much indeed.