Hackers Turned French Supermarket Freezers Into Ovens, Sparking Fires

French supermarket freezers were turned into ovens by hackers.

Refrigeration-control software at hundreds of shops across France was taken over by attackers this week. Temperatures were driven as high as 50°C, a level more like a desert heatwave than a frozen-food section.

The damage done:

• Hundreds of stores were caught up. Carrefour said 80 of its locations were hit, while Intermarché owner Les Mousquetaires reported roughly 150.
• Food losses reached millions of euros. Fresh and frozen inventory was destroyed.
• Fires also erupted. The incident triggered fires at several stores, according to Reuters.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has directed France’s National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) to investigate, according to an aide.

“Hundreds of French supermarkets have been hit by a cyber-attack that caused their fridges and freezers to heat up.” — BBC News (World)

Not Only France: Japan and South Korea Are Also Under Attack

The freezer intrusion is the most unusual in a series of cyberattacks over the past few weeks, and Asia has taken the heaviest blow.

Japan: “A state of emergency in cyberspace”

• The Financial Times reported that more than 20 major firms have disclosed cyberattacks in recent weeks.
• Masaaki Taira, who leads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s cybersecurity strategy headquarters, described the situation as a “state of emergency in cyberspace”.
• Japan saw more cyber incidents in the first nine months of 2026 than it did across the whole of 2025, according to Reuters, which cited TrendAI data.

South Korea: bank breaches point to AI

• Tens of thousands of customers had their data exposed in breaches at financial institutions.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) models seem to have been involved, President Lee Jae Myung warned.
• CrowdStrike tied the breaches to a suspected attacker who used an open-source AI penetration-testing tool alongside large language models.

Wall Street Divided on How Much Further Security Stocks Can Climb

AI-linked threats have been pulling investors into cybersecurity stocks this year, and the pattern resurfaced in Seoul on Tuesday. The KOSPI fell 5.46%, dragged down by a chip selloff tied to worries about the AI boom.

SK Hynix fell 10.09% and Samsung Electronics lost 7.39%. Cybersecurity company AhnLab headed in the opposite direction, closing 10.51% higher, and Genians also ended the day up.

A similar split showed up in Tokyo, where the Nikkei 225 slipped 1.82% and Cyber Security Cloud climbed 12.97% to ¥4,180.

The Herald Business reported that AhnLab and Genians had both jumped on October 6, after the bank breaches raised expectations of larger security budgets. Karen Wu, a senior analyst at Fitch, similarly foresees cybersecurity budgets rising across the sector, along with regulatory penalties and compensation costs.

US security stocks had been helped by AI-threat concerns long before these incidents. The First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR) is up roughly 50% since the start of the year.

Analysts disagree on how much of that future demand the rally has already priced in. Morgan Stanley is more upbeat, pointing out that AI security receives only about 1.5% of enterprise AI investment, and raised its price target on Palo Alto Networks to $410 from $394.

Bernstein takes a more cautious line, having cut its rating on Palo Alto Networks on September 17. The run-up, in its assessment, had pushed shares to near or past fair value.

South Korea’s experience is a concrete example of the warnings that AI has made attacking easier. The next round of quarterly earnings should reveal whether the increase in attacks is translating into larger security budgets.