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Unchanged passwords let hackers heat supermarket fridges, BBC reports

The BBC's explainer traces attacks on commercial cooling systems from spoiled supermarket food to French blood banks, where no supplies were harmed.

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BBC News Story of November 6, 2026Trari Newsroom

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Why are fridges being hacked around the world? | BBC News

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1:23Jake Moore explains that internet connections let engineers manage supermarket refrigeration remotely.
2:11Chris Vallance says attackers found exposed controllers through online searches and accessed them using unchanged default passwords.
3:22Nick Beake reports from a Brussels supermarket where spoiled food worth around €100,000 had to be discarded.
4:05French blood banks' cooling facilities were targeted, but the BBC reports that no blood supplies were harmed.
5:39Competing claims of responsibility complicate efforts to establish who carried out the attacks.
8:12Moore says AI can speed up vulnerability searches for attackers while also strengthening cyber defence.

Food fills dumpsters outside a Brussels supermarket after a cyberattack turned its refrigeration systems into a source of heat. According to BBC News's report, attackers remotely raised temperatures in commercial fridges across Europe, in some cases to 50°C.

The route in was not especially sophisticated. BBC technology reporter Chris Vallance explains that hackers used online search tools to find exposed fridge controllers, then gained access through default passwords that had never been changed.

Why connect a supermarket fridge to the internet at all? Jake Moore, a cybersecurity adviser at ESET, gives a practical answer: engineers can manage the equipment remotely. The attacks expose what can happen when that convenience is not matched by basic security.

BBC Brussels correspondent Nick Beake reports that the spoiled stock at the supermarket amounted to around €100,000. The report also examines attacks on regional French blood banks' cooling facilities, while making an important distinction: no blood supplies were harmed.

Who carried out the attacks is less clear. Vallance describes competing claims of responsibility and the difficulty of establishing who was actually behind them, rather than treating online claims as proof.

The final part looks beyond refrigeration. Former National Cyber Security Centre chief Ciaran Martin warns about the disruption attacks could cause to schools and hospitals, and calls for organisations to address long-neglected security weaknesses. Moore says AI could accelerate the search for vulnerable systems, but could also help defenders find and secure them.