Over Sunday night, some spoilsport hackers hijacked the fridge systems of hundreds of supermarkets across France and cranked up their thermostats to temperatures as high as 122 degrees Fahrenheit, ruining incalculable stores of groceries and even causing fires.
As Reuters reports, the Paris prosecutor’s office described it as a “large-scale” attack that affected “several major food retailers across France.”
The numbers are incredible. The chain Carrefour said that 80 of its supermarkets were attacked. The owner of Intermarche said that fridges at 150 stores were heated up to 122 degrees for six hours overnight. And Monoprix, which has 490 stores in France, said that about five percent of its locations were affected.
Intermarche CEO Thierry Cotillard, in comments to BFM TV quoted by Reuters, estimated that the attack has caused losses amounting to “tens of millions of euros nationwide in a single day,” calling it “unprecedented.”
