Professor Raj Rajarajan, Director of the Institute for Cyber Security, comments on cybersecurity after the attack on supermarket fridges and freezers across Europe on Monday 2 November.
By Dr Shamim Quadir (Senior Communications Officer), Published
On Monday, retailers in Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden reported issues with their refrigeration systems, with some system temperatures reported to have risen as high as 50°C (122°F), and several companies confirming they had been hacked.
Food suppliers in the UK have subsequently been hit by cyber attacks, with the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NSCS) saying the impact nationally has been minimal and it is working with suppliers.
No group or actor has yet been found responsible for the attacks.
Professor Raj Rajarajan is the Director of the Institute for Cyber Security at the School of Science & Technology, City St George's, University of London, and co-founder of Cyber London.
Commenting on cybersecurity in the context of these attacks, he shared:
"The increasing digitalisation of Europe's food logistics sector has created new cyber risks for cold-chain infrastructure. Modern freezer warehouses, refrigerated transport systems, and distribution centres rely on interconnected Industrial Control Systems (ICS), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) platforms, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, and cloud-based monitoring services. While these technologies improve operational efficiency, they also expand the cyber attack surface.
"A cyber attack targeting freezer control systems can have serious consequences for food safety and supply-chain continuity. Manipulation of refrigeration set points, compromise of temperature sensors, or ransomware attacks on warehouse management systems may lead to large-scale spoilage of frozen products, regulatory breaches, and disruption of food distribution networks.
"Several technical challenges complicate the protection of cold-chain infrastructure. Many facilities continue to operate legacy operational technology that lacks strong authentication, encryption, and patch management capabilities. Furthermore, increasing integration between enterprise IT systems and operational technology environments creates pathways for lateral movement by attackers. Remote maintenance interfaces and third-party vendor access introduce additional vulnerabilities.
"From a security engineering perspective, ensuring the integrity of sensor data and control commands is critical. False temperature readings or unauthorised control actions may remain undetected until significant physical damage has occurred. Consequently, cyber attacks on freezer infrastructure represent a cyber-physical threat with direct implications for food security.
"Mitigation requires a defence-in-depth approach incorporating network segmentation, zero-trust access control, secure remote access, continuous monitoring, real-time attack prediction, post quantum security, and anomaly detection tailored to industrial environments.
"Future research should focus on AI-driven threat detection and automated threat mitigation, trustworthy sensing architectures, digital twins for resilience testing, and secure orchestration of distributed cold-chain systems.
"As European food supply chains become increasingly connected, cyber resilience must be recognised as a fundamental component of food security rather than merely an information technology concern. Furthermore, with the predicted growth in AI based cyber attacks in the near future one needs to rethink critical national infrastructure security and the impact this will have on our safety and daily lives."
All quotes can be attributed to Professor Raj Rajarajan, Director of the Institute for Cyber Security at City St George's, University of London.
Professor Rajarajan is available to provide further comment on these and other cybersecurity threats due to AI and quantum computing, and also his wider work in helping companies and governments improve their cyber posture.
For enquiries, please contact the City St George’s, University of London press office