German Watchdog Warns Some Cooling Systems Remain Vulnerable to Hacking

Germany’s information security office BSI warned on Friday of ongoing vulnerabilities in some of Danish firm Danfoss’ industrial cooling appliances, following cyberattacks on refrigeration systems across Europe. The systems in question should be taken offline when possible or otherwise any connection should be secured via VPN, or Virtual Private Network, BSI said in a security advisory on its website. Hacking attacks on European supermarkets spread across the continent last week, hitting fridges and freezers from Sweden to Belgium and forcing stores to throw away food in an incident that echoed a similar attack in France last month. Read more: Insurers: French Supermarkets’ Cyber Insurance Unlikely to Cover Food Losses At least some of the refrigerator units affected used temperature control technology from Danfoss that was also targeted in the French attack. The German office said IT security managers should also check whether they can install updates available from the company. It warned, however, that Danfoss had not yet provided sufficient software updates to counter the attacks. “Even new patches do not guarantee that further vulnerabilities in an affected product will not come to light in the near future. Industrial control systems should therefore not be directly accessible from the internet.” The United States last week also warned of a “cyber threat” to industrial refrigeration systems. (Reporting by Andreas Rinke; writing by Linda Pasquini; editing by Ludwig Burger) Photograph: Destroyed refrigerated goods are being thrown away from powerless freezers at ICA Baronen store on Odengatan in Stockholm, on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, after some stores’ refrigerators and freezers shut down; (Fredrik Sandberg/TT News Agency via AP) Related: Freezer Hacks ‘a Wake-Up Call for Society’ Pentagon CIO Says European Supermarkets Rush to Patch Vulnerabilities After Region-Wide Fridge Hack Supermarkets Across Europe Report New Suspected Freezer Hack French Supermarket Hack Exposes Cyber Vulnerabilities in Retail Hackers Heat French Supermarket Fridges, Sparking Fires and Spoiling Food Topics Cyber Germany Was this article valuable? Thank you! Please tell us what we can do to improve this article. Thank you! % of people found this article valuable. Please tell us what you liked about it. Here are more articles you may enjoy.