Pentagon Investigates Coordinated Cyberattack Sabotaging Freezers at 14 US Military Bases

The Pentagon is digging into a coordinated cyberattack that sabotaged food supplies across 14 US military bases. Hackers apparently exploited a global loophole to knock out freezers overnight. Sources told Reuters that six bases saw commissary fridges and freezers disrupted on a single night in August. Researchers tracking the failures logged outage reports at as many as 14 locations.

The damage was visceral. At one base, temperatures inside the freezers climbed through the night. Staff opened the doors in the morning to find thawed, leaking stock. Fort Huachuca in Arizona broke the news to its shoppers on Facebook on August 26. The post stated that the commissary freezer "went into defrost mode where it heated up all the food."

This is not an isolated incident. The Pentagon is working with US allies in Europe. A similar spate of overnight freezer attacks has struck hundreds of grocery stores from Finland to France. The same sabotage hit Europe again this morning. Fridges and freezers in stores across at least seven countries were driven to 50C (122F) in the small hours. This is the second such cyber strike in three weeks.

Belgium took a heavy blow, with more than 50 stores targeted. Another dozen surfaced in Ireland, Estonia, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. A handful of smaller Swedish shops and a few outlets in Finland were also hit. The Pentagon treats these food storage failures as a hack. Investigators have not identified any suspects.

The six commissaries hit in late August are distinct from dining facilities. These are the discount grocery stores where military families and retirees shop on base. They are not the mess halls that feed soldiers living in barracks. In France, officials say 700 supermarkets lost their refrigeration earlier this month. No suspects are in custody.

The Pentagon said a unit of Cyber Command is working in close coordination with interagency and law enforcement partners. Army CID's Cyber Field Office has joined the hunt. They are talking to French police about the European outages. A defense official noted that the Defense Commissary Agency shifted stock to other temperature-controlled sites to limit losses.

The stores stayed open. Naval Station Newport and Fort Irwin sold dry goods only while technicians worked. A spokeswoman for Swedish chain ICA said every affected store was wired to an external refrigeration control system supplied by Danfoss, a Danish manufacturer. This is the same supplier targeted in France.

The six ICA stores that failed ran on a 4G mobile connection rather than its upgraded 5G system. That left them more exposed. The chain said it does not know who attacked it. French finance minister Roland Lescure told Parliament that about 700 of the country's 10,000 supermarkets were hit. Fires broke out as equipment overheated. He said there was no risk to French food supplies, but the attack touched the heart of the country's food security.