The Pentagon is treating a series of mysterious freezer malfunctions that spoiled food at U.S. military bases in August as a suspected cyberattack, according to four officials familiar with the matter. Investigators are collaborating with their French counterparts regarding a similar cyberattack that disrupted supermarkets there earlier this month.
The Pentagon stated that a unit of Cyber Command is "working in close coordination with interagency and law enforcement partners" on the investigation, but did not provide further details. The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division confirmed its Cyber Field Office is involved and is cooperating with French law enforcement to understand the "refrigeration outages in Europe."
At least six commissaries, on-base stores where military personnel purchase food, were affected by the malfunctions in late August. In some instances, the cooling units were reportedly turned up overnight, causing food to spoil. For example, an August 26 post on the Fort Huachuca, Arizona, Facebook account stated that its freezer "went into defrost mode where it heated up all the food. Trust us when we say it was ‘spoiled.’"
The incidents and the possibility of cyber sabotage were first reported by the blog Signal and Silence.
International Coordination
News of the military investigators' involvement and their contact with French authorities was previously reported by Stars and Stripes and Britain’s Daily Telegraph, respectively. The current reporting indicates that investigators are treating the incident as a suspected cyberattack.
In France, a similar cyberattack affected over 350 commercial establishments, overriding temperature controls and causing food spoilage. Some refrigeration units in France reportedly overheated to the point of catching fire. Experts suggest that the French attack, which involved increasing temperatures rather than merely shutting down units, may have been facilitated by obsolete or outdated firmware in the refrigeration controllers.
While it is not yet established if the same brands or types of freezer controllers were used at the affected U.S. bases, the potential for such vulnerabilities to disrupt critical infrastructure like cold storage is a growing concern. The Global Food Safety Initiative has previously called for enhanced cybersecurity measures in refrigeration technology, noting that a compromised cooling system can be as dangerous as a broken one.
This is not the first time refrigeration systems have been targeted. In 2022, Danfoss reported that hackers targeted supermarkets in Russia and Israel using obsolete versions of its cold storage controllers. Last December, federal prosecutors accused a Ukrainian woman of participating in a hacker group that disrupted refrigeration at a U.S. meatpacking facility in 2024, leading to the spoilage of thousands of pounds of meat.
Experts note that a root cause of these vulnerabilities is the increasing connection of refrigeration controllers, originally designed for isolated, in-person maintenance, to the internet. This online exposure can have significant consequences, including disruptions to the food supply chain.