SuperValu fridges and freezers attacked in cyber incident

Musgrave, the group behind SuperValu, said the incident was limited to a specific model of refrigeration equipment.

“Our monitoring systems alerted us to the issue and we took immediate action,” a spokesperson said.

“As a precaution, chilled and frozen products in the affected stores have been removed from sale, and all other products remain available as normal.”

The company said customers could be confident that products still on sale had been stored at safe temperatures.

“Customer safety is our first priority,” the spokesperson said.

“Our investigation is ongoing. We are working closely with the suppliers of the affected refrigeration equipment and with cybersecurity specialists to resolve the issue and restore normal operations as quickly as possible.”

The statement did not identify the 13 stores or give a time for restoring the system.

The incident comes amid refrigeration problems at supermarkets elsewhere in Europe.

Hundreds of French supermarkets were hit by a cyber attack that caused their fridges and freezers to heat up, spoiling fresh and frozen food estimated to be worth millions of euros.

180 stores from Intermarché and its Netto brand were affected, with a spokesman saying that another 100 shops were urgently disconnected from the internet to prevent the same thing happening to them.