Sweden's cybersecurity centre working on freezer incidents at several grocery stores

Sweden's national cybersecurity centre is working on several incidents affecting refrigeration systems in grocery stores across the country, the head of the centre, John Billow, told Reuters on Monday.

The temperature of freezers at several Swedish grocery stores rose sharply overnight, operators ICA and Coop said on Monday, with at least one store blaming the incident on a cyberattack.

French police last month said hackers seized control of cooling units at hundreds of supermarkets in a large-scale attack, causing food losses and fires, and underlining the vulnerabilities of connected systems.


One Swedish store on Monday said on social media that the temperature of its refrigerators and freezers had been set to 50 degrees Celsius (122 F), similar to the attack in France.

"We are aware that a limited number of stores were affected by an incident overnight, which impacted their refrigeration and freezer systems," a spokesperson at privately held ICA said in an email.

Privately held grocery retail group Coop told daily Aftonbladet that six of its stores had been affected by similar incidents.

Coop did not immediately respond to a request for comment.