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The head of Britain's National Cyber Security Centre says UK organisations have been caught up in a cyber attack that overheated supermarket refrigeration units across seven European countries.
✦ AI SUMMARY 30-second read
- Hackers remotely raised in-store chiller temperatures to as high as 55C, spoiling millions of euros worth of food across dozens of European supermarkets.
- NCSC chief executive Richard Horne confirmed a handful of UK organisations have been alerted, with at least a couple of confirmed incidents of vulnerable technology being exploited.
- The NCSC annual report recorded 1,831 cyber attack reports this year, of which 337 required support and 80 were classed as nationally significant.
Why it matters: The attack illustrates how ageing operational technology controlling physical infrastructure — from fridges to electricity systems — can expose entire supply chains to cyber threats.
This summary was generated by AI. Editors may review and update it.
UK organisations have been caught up in a cyber attack that allowed hackers to overheat refrigeration units inside European supermarkets, the chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has warned. Richard Horne said his team had worked through the night alerting organisations in the UK where exposed technology was found to be vulnerable.
The original attack, which took place on Monday, affected dozens of supermarkets across seven European countries. Hackers were able to remotely push in-store chiller temperatures to as high as 55C, resulting in millions of euros worth of food being ruined. It is the second time in recent weeks that retailers' refrigeration systems have been targeted.
Horne, whose organisation is part of GCHQ, said his team was aware of a couple of incidents in the UK where vulnerable technology had been exploited, though he cautioned that the full extent of the impact was not yet known.
What was announced
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Horne said: 'There are handfuls of organisations in the UK we've alerted and we're aware of a couple of impacts, we think. We don't know the full impact but can see there are a couple of incidents where vulnerable technology has been exploited and we have been working with those organisations to understand more.'
On the question of who carried out the attack, Horne said it was too early to say. He noted that responsibility could lie with state actors or criminals, and that each would have different motivations. Mystery still surrounds who was behind Monday's incident.
The broader threat to operational technology
Horne warned that the danger extended well beyond supermarkets and ran through the entire food supply chain, as well as other sectors that rely on operational technology — the systems that control physical processes such as electricity switching, water supply and refrigeration.
He said many organisations had continued using systems beyond their end of life without upgrading them, leaving vulnerabilities that adversaries could now identify and exploit with ease, aided by the rapid development of artificial intelligence. 'That technology base that we rely on on as a society has not been invested in the way to the extent it should have been,' he said.
Horne cautioned that vulnerabilities exist across the technologies that keep lights on, water running and food on shelves, and called on all organisations to invest in renewing their systems.
Background: NCSC annual report findings
The warning came alongside the publication of the NCSC's annual report, which Horne described as a 'sliding doors' moment for national cyber security. The report found that hackers demanding ransom payments are highly likely to use AI to target the UK by 2028, and that hostile states will routinely use the technology to pursue their goals by then.
The NCSC's incident management team received 1,831 reports of cyber attacks this year, of which 337 required support and 80 were classed as nationally significant. The team also warned 8,500 organisations that their systems had been compromised.
In his speech launching the report, Horne said the country faced 'a real prospect of an unprecedented rise in the number of cyber incidents' in the coming months, driven not by new attack methods invented by AI, but by long-tolerated vulnerabilities now being discovered and exploited at previously unimaginable scale.
What happens next
The NCSC said it was continuing to work with affected UK organisations to understand the full impact of the incidents. The identity of those responsible for the attack on European supermarket refrigeration systems remains unknown at this stage.
Elets will update this story as further details emerge.