Hackers just turned French supermarket freezers into ovens.
This week, attackers took over the software that controls refrigeration at hundreds of stores across France. They pushed temperatures up to 50°C, which is desert-heatwave territory inside a frozen food aisle.
The damage:
- Hundreds of stores hit. Carrefour said 80 of its stores were affected. Intermarché owner Les Mousquetaires reported around 150.
- Millions of euros in food spoiled. Fresh and frozen stock was ruined.
- Fires broke out. According to Reuters, the incident also triggered fires at several stores.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has instructed France’s National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) to investigate, a person in his office said.
France Isn’t Alone: Japan and South Korea Are Under Fire Too
The freezer attack is the strangest in a string of cyberattacks over the past few weeks. Asia has been hit hardest.
Japan: “A state of emergency in cyberspace”
- More than 20 major companies disclosed cyberattacks in recent weeks, the Financial Times reported.
- Masaaki Taira, who heads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s cybersecurity strategy headquarters, called it a state of emergency in cyberspace.
- Reuters, citing TrendAI data, reported that Japan logged more cyber incidents in the first nine months of 2026 than in all of 2025.
South Korea: Banks breached, AI suspected
- Breaches at financial institutions exposed data belonging to tens of thousands of customers.
- President Lee Jae Myung warned that artificial intelligence (AI) models appear to have been used.
- CrowdStrike linked the breaches to a suspected attacker using an open-source AI penetration-testing tool alongside large language models.
Wall Street Is Split on How Much Upside Is Left
Growing AI-linked threats have drawn investors into cybersecurity stocks this year. The pattern held in Seoul on Tuesday. KOSPI fell 5.46%. A chip selloff tied to AI boom worries drove the decline.
SK Hynix fell 10.09%, and Samsung Electronics lost 7.39%. AhnLab, a cybersecurity company, moved the other way, closing 10.51% higher, while Genians also finished up.
Tokyo saw a similar split, with the Nikkei 225 down 1.82% and Cyber Security Cloud up 12.97% to ¥4,180.
AhnLab and Genians had both surged on October 6, after the bank breaches raised expectations of higher security spending, The Herald Business reported. Fitch senior analyst Karen Wu also expects a sector-wide rise in cybersecurity spending, alongside regulatory penalties and compensation costs.
In the US, concerns over AI-driven threats lifted security stocks well before these attacks. The First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR) returned about 50% year-to-date.
Analysts differ on how much future demand those gains already reflect. Morgan Stanley sees more room, noting only about 1.5% of enterprise AI investment goes to AI security. It raised its Palo Alto Networks target to $410 from $394.
Bernstein is more cautious, having downgraded Palo Alto Networks on September 17. It argued the rally had pushed prices close to fair value or beyond.
The Korean case adds a real-world example to warnings that AI lowers the bar for attackers. Upcoming quarterly results should show whether rising attacks are turning into bigger security budgets.
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