U.S. Investigates Commissary Freezer Failures as Europe Reports Outages

The Department of Defense (DoD) is investigating late-August refrigeration outages at at least six U.S. military commissaries, as retailers in five European countries faced new refrigeration problems Monday, Nov. 2.

On Aug. 28, the DoD acknowledged a possible refrigeration disruption at some Defense Commissary Agency stores but did not identify a cause. A DoD official later said the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) was leading a joint investigation. Four officials familiar with the case characterized the outages as a suspected hack; the department has not publicly confirmed that hackers caused them.

Incidents were reported in Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland and Estonia. Carrefour Belgium said a cyberattack caused minor refrigeration disruptions at 15 locations in its network of more than 700 stores; all locations stayed open. Sabcobel CEO Stephan Moelans said outages affected about 20 refrigeration systems at Delhaize, Carrefour and Spar stores; that figure counts systems, not stores.

Sweden’s ICA said an overnight incident disrupted refrigeration and freezer systems at a limited number of stores. ICA said those stores used connections outside its central network and did not identify the cause. ICA Kvantum Sjöbo separately said its refrigerators and freezers had been hacked and set to 50°C (122°F), forcing it to discard food.

An October attack on French supermarket refrigeration systems affected hundreds of stores. The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into that attack; reported damage included food losses and fire alarms. Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) spokesman Thomas Hamilton said Army CID was working with DCIS and French law enforcement to understand refrigeration outages in Europe. No connection has been established among the U.S. commissary failures, the French attack and the latest European incidents.