Pentagon Probes Hacks on Grocery Store Freezers

The Pentagon is investigating whether rogue supermarket freezers in Europe are tied to cyberattacks. About twenty refrigerator systems in Delhaize, Carrefour, and Spar stores suffered outages late Sunday night into Monday morning. Hackers raised temperatures to one hundred twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit and forced stores to throw out spoiled food. The recent wave follows similar hacks last month across French supermarkets including eighty Carrefour locations and one hundred fifty Intermarche stores. Hackers also hit Swedish chains ICA and Coop, along with locations in Luxembourg and Estonia. The incidents mirror an outage at half a dozen United States military commissaries back in August. Experts warn that internet-connected appliances often lack strong security features. Two French supermarkets already reported three hundred thousand dollars in combined damages from the spoiled food.