A cyberattack disrupted refrigeration systems at grocery stores across France, leading retailers to discard food that may no longer have been kept at safe temperatures, according to the licensed source, which cites Reuters and French officials.
Affected chains included Carrefour, Monoprix, Les Mousquetaires, E. Leclerc and Coopérative U. Coopérative U’s chief executive said the incident had affected cold-storage facilities at several stores in its network. The Paris prosecutor’s office described the incident as a large-scale attack involving connected refrigerators at several major food retailers.
Carrefour reported that about 80 stores were affected. Monoprix said approximately 5% of its 490 French stores were hit. Les Mousquetaires said refrigeration at roughly 150 stores was affected and that the impacted food had been discarded.
The financial impact had not been officially calculated. Intermarche CEO Thierry Cotillard was cited as estimating losses of tens of millions of euros nationwide in a single day. The source also reports a separate expert estimate exceeding 10 million euros; those figures remain estimates, not an official accounting.
France’s National Cyber Security Agency was instructed to investigate. A source close to Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said investigators had identified a software vulnerability and contacted the vendor. The source material also attributes information to AFP that some affected systems used older equipment or firmware that no longer received security updates.
The precise cause, scope and total cost of the incident remain under investigation. The reported estimates and technical details have not been independently established in the supplied material.
