Pentagon Treats Freezer Failures That Spoiled Food at US Military Bases as a Suspected Hack, per Reuters
The Pentagon is investigating a wave of freezer failures at US military bases as a suspected cyberattack, per Reuters.
The Pentagon is treating the August freezer malfunctions, which hit at least six on-base commissaries, as a suspected hack, per Reuters.
The commissaries are the on-base grocery stores that serve military personnel, and the failures left stores with mounds of spoiled food.
At Fort Huachuca in Arizona, a freezer went into defrost mode on August 26 and heated up all the food inside. "Trust us when we say it was 'spoiled,'" the base said.
In at least one case, the cooling units did not simply stop working. Their temperatures were cranked up overnight, and staff found wilted and melted food in the morning.
Cyber Command Is Investigating
A unit of US Cyber Command is "working in close coordination with interagency and law enforcement partners," the Pentagon said, and the Army Criminal Investigation Division's Cyber Field Office is involved in the probe.
Investigators have not said who might be responsible, or whether they have confirmed the failures were caused by an attack at all, per Reuters.
The rogue freezer behavior was first flagged in August by the Signal and Silence blog, before military investigators became involved.
A 2021 assessment by the Department of Homeland Security had already identified refrigeration failures as a cybersecurity risk to food and agriculture that could cause spoilage and shortages.
France Got Hit First
US investigators are working with French law enforcement after a similar cyberattack this month overrode the temperature controls on commercial refrigeration units at more than 350 supermarkets across France, per Reuters.
Frozen food aisles were cleared of spoiled merchandise, and some units were turned up so high they caught fire.
One supermarket owner estimated the French attack could cost tens of millions of euros nationwide.
Many of the French units ran on controllers made by Denmark's Danfoss, which said many of the devices were obsolete or running outdated firmware, making them easy to break into. France's cybersecurity agency, CERT-FR, separately flagged internet-exposed Danfoss, Copeland, and Dixell controller interfaces as a security risk.
It is not known whether Danfoss or any other brand of controller was in use at the affected US bases, per Reuters, and the reporting does not establish that the US and French incidents involved the same attackers.
What It Means for Markets
If confirmed, the attack would be a striking example of how exposed everyday operational technology, the systems that run freezers, factories, and water plants, has become.
A confirmed hack of military cold storage would strengthen the case for bigger federal and commercial spending on industrial cybersecurity, a theme traders track through CRWD, PANW, and FTNT.
On the exposed side, grocery and cold-chain operators carry the direct spoilage risk, putting names like WMT, KR, and COST in focus, while building and refrigeration controls exposure sits with names like HON and CARR.
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