The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Monday that a “large-scale” attack was “affecting connected refrigerators in several major food retailers across France”, leading to food losses and fires

International News via Reuters:

Hackers raised the temperature of refrigerators and freezers at hundreds of French supermarkets to as high as 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight, causing fires and spoiling food.    

The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Monday that a “large-scale” attack was “affecting connected refrigerators in several major food retailers across France”, leading to food losses and fires.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has instructed France’s National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) to investigate, a person in his office said. 

France was coordinating with European counterparts because other countries could also be affected, the person said, adding that authorities were assessing whether other French companies were at risk.    

Felix Aime, a senior cyber threat intelligence analyst at Sekoia Threat Detection and Research, said Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany and Belgium had also been affected.

Carrefour said 80 of its supermarkets were hit, while Monoprix, which operates about 490 stores in France, said 5% of its stores were affected.

Les Mousquetaires, owner of retailer Intermarche, said fridges at around 150 of its stores were heated up to 50 C for six hours overnight. A spokesperson said all affected food had been discarded to eliminate health risks.

Paris resident Geert de Clercq witnessed staff at an Intermarche in central Paris throwing cartfuls of defrosted frozen foods into a giant trash container, with molten ice cream sloshing out of broken tubs on the street.

Cooperative U CEO Dominique Schelcher said his supermarket group had also been targeted.    

“Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is of extreme gravity and is unprecedented,” he wrote on X.

Food retailers E.Leclerc and Auchan did not respond to requests for comment.

There was no immediate estimate of industry-wide losses, but Intermarche CEO Thierry Cotillard told BFM TV the “unprecedented” attack would represent losses amounting to “tens of millions of euros nationwide in a single day.”

Christel Delberghe, director general at European retail association Eurocommerce, said, “This incident underlines the importance of resilience across the entire supply chain.”

COLD AISLES CONTROLLED OVER INTERNET

Supermarket cold aisles are typically run by control panels that manage an entire store’s fridges and freezers and can be accessed over the internet, which lets maintenance companies adjust them from anywhere.

The source close to Lecornu said ANSSI had identified a vulnerability in software supplied by Danish company Danfoss.

Danfoss said it was “aware of incidents in France affecting a limited number of refrigeration management systems”.

The affected units “were running outdated firmware”, Danfoss said, adding that it had “long advised customers to keep supported systems updated with the latest firmware and to migrate legacy systems to current-generation solutions”. 

On August 9, cybersecurity firm Claroty’s Team82 published research detailing vulnerabilities in the Danfoss AK-SM 800A controller. According to the report, software updates issued by Danfoss addressed issues that could have allowed attackers to bypass authentication controls and execute code on compromised devices.    

The attacks resemble disruptions reported at about a dozen US military commissaries in late August that led to food losses after fridges were affected.

In a statement, French retail association Fédération du Commerce et de la Distribution called for “full transparency” from Danfoss about the incident. It said supermarkets aimed to protect consumers and return to normal operations as soon as possible. The FCD said some impacted stores were already back up and running.

DUTCH SECURITY ISSUE

Dutch retailer Ahold Delhaize, which operates the Netherlands’ largest supermarket chain Albert Heijn and has major operations in the US, said it was dealing with a “security issue” on its network and had taken several systems offline as a precaution.

A message on the retailer’s smartphone app said it was unable to deliver groceries because of a “cybersecurity incident”.    

Online orders account for about 10% of Albert Heijn sales. Physical stores remained open, while Dutch news agency ANP reported that rival retailers had seen a surge in delivery orders.

Ahold Delhaize said there was no reason to see a link between the incidents in France and its supermarkets.

Ahold is the fourth-largest grocery retailer in the US. Websites for its Stop & Shop, Giant, Hannaford and Food Lion chains displayed notices saying “site temporarily down”.

It was unclear whether other operations had been affected.

Reporting by Leo Marchandon, Helen Reid, AJ Vincens, Makini Brice, Toby Sterling; Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Richard Lough, Alexander Smith, Mark Potter and Cynthia Osterman

Oil and gas companies have reaped bumper profits this year, as energy prices have surged during the US-Israeli war with Iran, amid disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian attacks on Gulf neighbours

International News via Reuters:

The European Union is examining a bloc-wide windfall profit tax on oil and gas companies, the EU’s tax chief told Reuters on Monday, as governments scramble for funds to help citizens with soaring energy bills.    

Oil and gas companies have reaped bumper profits this year, as energy prices have surged during the US-Israeli war with Iran, amid disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian attacks on Gulf neighbours.

Wopke Hoekstra, the European Commissioner responsible for climate and taxation, said the Commission was setting up a working group to examine the merits and drawbacks of a levy and assess whether such a measure would be viable.

“Citizens, and particularly vulnerable citizens, are confronted with dramatic increases in their energy bills. And some companies are reaping truly excessive benefits without delivering any additional service or any additional products. They’re reaping the benefits from the world being in turmoil,” Hoekstra said in an interview.

“To many citizens and many politicians, that feels off… I think we all have sympathy for the underlying logic, regardless of where we exactly take the conversation,” he said.

Benchmark Brent crude futures prices climbed to multi‑year highs near $120 a barrel in late April and remain more than 70% above their level at the start of the year, boosting profits for oil refiners and producers.

Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Poland and Austria have urged the EU to examine a bloc-wide windfall profit tax.

Hoekstra said Brussels would carefully assess the legal status of any potential measure.

The EU introduced a windfall profit levy on oil, gas, coal and refining companies in 2022 after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices soaring. Legal challenges are still pending after companies including ExxonMobil argued the measure was unlawful. 

“We’re still litigating court cases from the decision in 2022 to do something similar,” Hoekstra said. “So that is something that we need to take into account as well.”

The 2022 scheme imposed a minimum 33% levy on surplus profits, defined as profits more than 20% above a company’s average earnings in previous years. It raised nearly €29 billion ($32 billion), according to a Commission report.

Some EU countries have already introduced national windfall levies. Portugal, for example, imposed a 33% tax on extraordinary profits earned in 2026 ​by oil and refining companies.

($1 = 0.8961 euros)

Reporting by Kate Abnett. Editing by Mark Potter

The US National Hurricane Center said Simon was about 55 miles (90 km) west-southwest of Cabo Corrientes in Jalisco state at 8 a.m.

International News via Reuters:

Hurricane Simon crept northwest just off Mexico’s Pacific coast on Monday, lashing western states with dangerous winds, heavy rain and flooding that put riverside communities on alert for possible evacuations.

The US National Hurricane Center said Simon was about 55 miles (90 km) west-southwest of Cabo Corrientes in Jalisco state at 8 a.m. (1400 GMT), packing maximum sustained winds of 110 mph (175 kph), making it a Category 2 hurricane. 

Simon has weakened since Saturday when it was a Category 4 system.

“Simon is slowly losing wind intensity and could ultimately stall this week and never make a true landfall as an organized storm,” said Alex DaSilva, a hurricane expert at private forecaster AccuWeather.

Simon is forecast to make landfall on Thursday in Mexico’s Sinaloa state.

“The slower Simon moves, the more rain potential the storm carries, but right now most of that rain is offshore and to the south of the storm’s center ultimately sparing the feet of rain we thought this storm could initially bring,” said DaSilva.

Simon was moving northwest at just 3 mph (6 kph) and was expected to continue along that track before turning northeast and moving inland across west-central Mexico around midweek.

Authorities said that Simon could bring life-threatening flooding and mudslides to parts of the Pacific coast and nearby mountains. 

The hurricane is forecast to dump an additional 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 cm) of rain across coastal areas of southwest and west-central Mexico, with isolated amounts of 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 cm) in parts of Jalisco and Sinaloa. The National Hurricane Center said isolated storm totals could reach 30 inches (76 cm) in parts of Michoacan, Colima and Jalisco.

The head of Mexico’s civil protection agency, Laura Velazquez, said one person was reported to have died due to the storm in Guerrero state, home to the popular tourist destination of Acapulco.

In the coastal town of Cihuatlan in southwestern Jalisco, patrols warned residents to prepare for potential evacuation as the Marabasco River rose. Floodwater inundated streets and low-lying areas of the town overnight.

In the port city of Manzanillo in Colima state, residents waded through flooded homes and streets as navy personnel helped remove water. 

“Everything got flooded,” said resident Maria Elena Vazquez from inside her home, pants rolled up as the water came up to her ankles.

The National Hurricane Center said Simon was expected to produce dangerous storm surge and large destructive waves close to where it approaches the coast. Swells from the hurricane are also forecast to create life-threatening surf and rip current conditions along southwestern and west-central Mexico over the next few days.

Following weeks of storms that have battered Mexico, at least 10 people are missing in the state of Baja California and one minor was killed in the coastal city of Ensenada.

Reporting by Alberto Fajardo and Daniel Becerril in Manzanillo, Mexico; Writing by Kylie Madry and Paolo Laudani in Mexico City; Editing by Will Dunham and Cynthia Osterman