The European Union is promising a collective response after cyberattacks on supermarket refrigeration systems spread on Tuesday to Germany, Romania and the United Kingdom, bringing the number of European countries hit to at least 11.

Hackers raised temperatures in store fridges, spoiling tonnes of food. Officials and company representatives said four German and six Romanian supermarkets were affected on Tuesday, after Monday problems in Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.

Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said EU agencies were talking with national authorities on a joint response: “These are not isolated incidents, and of course, we have to be collectively resilient and prepared for such cyber incidents.” He declined to name culprits.

Romania’s National Cyber Security Directorate chief Dan Cimpean called the attack “semi-amateurish” and said he did not suspect a state actor “under any circumstances.” “No other infrastructure was compromised,” he told AFP.

Belgium was among the hardest hit on Monday, with dozens of stores across several chains reporting refrigeration failures; federal prosecutors opened an investigation. In Italy, about 20 supermarkets were affected; at Coop Sicily, four of 300 stores were hit, with thousands of euros in damage and empty shelves.

In the UK, the impact on small meat-processing firms was minimal, said NCSC chief Richard Horne, though he flagged vulnerabilities across the food supply chain. The November wave mirrors October’s attack that swept hundreds of French stores and others across Europe.

In Sweden, Coop linked affected fridges to old 4G networks and accelerated a move to 5G. Danish controls maker Danfoss urged that refrigeration controllers not be directly reachable from the internet. France later reported hacks on cold storage at at least three blood banks; products were not damaged, the EFS said.

Source: EU urges action as Germany, Romania and UK report supermarket cyberattacks (Al Jazeera)