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A butcher’s shop in the Athens suburb of Kifisia has been targeted in a cyberattack on its refrigeration equipment, Greek media reported on Tuesday, adding a local dimension to a series of incidents that have disrupted supermarket cooling systems across Europe.
The compromised controllers were manufactured by Dixell. Further details on the scale of the disruption or any impact on stored food have not been released.
The report arrives weeks after Greece’s National Cybersecurity Authority identified more than 300 industrial systems across the country that were accessible via the public internet. Most were refrigeration controllers made by Danfoss, Copeland/Dixell and Carel. These devices manage temperatures in supermarkets, warehouses, butcher shops and food-processing facilities.
Officials stressed that exposure alone does not prove a system has been breached. Unprotected access, however, can allow outsiders to alter settings and interrupt cooling. The authority advised businesses to take the systems offline from the public internet immediately, restrict remote access to secure VPN connections with multi-factor authentication, change default passwords, apply security updates and replace any equipment no longer supported by manufacturers.
Similar problems have been reported in several European countries. On 2 November, supermarket operators in Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden and Ireland described rising temperatures in refrigerators and freezers. In Belgium, dozens of Delhaize and Carrefour stores were affected, along with several Colruyt outlets. Swedish chains Coop and ICA reported incidents at a limited number of locations. In Ireland, wholesaler Musgrave said 13 SuperValu stores experienced problems that forced the removal of some chilled and frozen goods. A Belgian butcher estimated losses of about €15,000 after temperatures climbed to 18°C.
Estonia has also recorded cases. Refrigeration company Kitman Coldtech said several clients were targeted through older controllers; in one instance, a freezer setting was changed remotely to 50°C before staff intervened within minutes.
These events follow an October campaign in France in which attackers took control of cooling systems at a large number of stores. Temperatures were driven from deep freeze levels to more than 50°C in some cases, alarms were disabled and large volumes of meat, dairy and frozen food had to be discarded. Losses at just two stores in Alsace reached €270,000.
The pattern shows how interference with connected refrigeration equipment can move beyond data theft to threaten food stocks and daily operations. Retailers may have to throw out perishable goods; shoppers may find gaps in chilled and frozen sections.
No stores in Cyprus have been named in the current reports. Yet the same makes of controllers are widely used in commercial refrigeration across Europe, including on the island. For Cypriot supermarkets, butchers, warehouses and food processors, the European cases offer a clear practical lesson: systems left reachable from the open internet create avoidable risk to inventory, revenue and the reliable supply of chilled and frozen products.
Operators are urged to review remote-access arrangements, confirm that controllers are not publicly exposed, enforce strong authentication and keep software current. Early action remains the most effective protection against the kind of disruption already seen from France to Greece.
