Supermarkets present a new opportunity for hackers

Hackers in France recently set their sights on an unusual target: supermarkets. After hundreds of French grocers had their refrigerators hacked and taken offline, many are worried that attacks like these could become commonplace, including in the U.S.

How do hackers go after supermarkets?

In the case of the French hacking, criminals “remotely connected to refrigeration equipment” and “switched on defrost cycles that led to the loss of large quantities of fresh and frozen goods,” said CNN. Most grocery store fridges are connected to online controllers, allowing “maintenance firms to adjust the temperature remotely,” but this also makes the fridges vulnerable to hackers who can disable certain settings.

This isn’t the first instance of a widespread supermarket hack. In 2025, United Natural Foods, which supplies frozen foods to grocers in the U.S. and Canada, said it “discovered a cyberattack that forced it to take its systems offline,” said Al Jazeera. Also last year, conglomerate Ahold Delhaize USA, which owns grocery chains like Food Lion and Stop & Shop, was the “victim of a cyberattack that disrupted operations at more than 2,000 stores.” And British chain Marks & Spencer suffered a 2025 hacking that reportedly cost it $397 million.

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How can this be prevented?

Most experts say consumers don’t have to be worried, for now. But it’s a different story for businesses. “Smart appliances connected to the internet will always be vulnerable as hackers seize on security lapses to log in to the systems remotely and trigger malicious features,” cybersecurity analyst Steven Lachance told Al Jazeera. These attacks also highlight “vulnerabilities in global food supplies that can be quickly and dangerously exploited,” said CNET.

To protect businesses, experts typically “recommend changing default passwords, enabling two-factor authentication where ⁠available and regularly ​installing software updates,” said Reuters. The “simplest rule is often the most ​effective: The fewer connected devices you have, the fewer potential entry points exist for attackers.”

Despite precautions, hackings of this nature still remain the “next frontier for sabotage attacks,” Muhammad Yahya Patel, the virtual chief information security officer at cybersecurity firm Huntress, said to Bloomberg. Technology has now been “weaponized against food retail infrastructure,” and the “immediate financial consequences are significant and visible.”