OT / ICS · 6h ago
ANSSI said about 700 French supermarkets were caught up in a refrigeration-controller attack that began with Danfoss AK-SM and AK-SC systems and then widened to Copeland XWEB and Dixell XWEB gear. Copeland has now acknowledged a vulnerability, but French authorities still have not said which flaw was used or how the attackers got in.
The affected fleet is a mix of older end-of-life controllers and some newer AK-SM 800A units running outdated firmware, which makes the cleanup problem larger than a normal patch cycle. On those systems, taking management interfaces off the internet or behind a VPN can reduce exposure, but on devices that cannot be fixed in place, the security move can also force stores into manual refrigeration work or outages.
That leaves retail operators with a continuity problem, not just a firmware problem: if the controller still has to manage cold-chain operations, removing remote exposure may protect it while immediately degrading how the site runs. The open question is how many other legacy industrial devices are sitting in the same exposed position without a realistic in-place fix.
2 sources covering this story
Supermarket Refrigeration Attack Widens to Copeland, Dixell Controllers
Roughly 700 French supermarkets were hit by the cyberattacks, for which no group has claimed responsibility.
French Supermarket Cyber-Attack Impacts More Refrigeration Controllers
At least two French supermarkets using temperature regulation devices from Dixell Electronics also experienced food stock disruptions
Part of the PlainSec briefing for 2026-10-15