French grocery fridge hack is a warning sign for Estonia

A cyberattack on French grocery stores on Sunday that led to large quantities of food being destroyed is also a warning sign for Estonia, cybersecurity experts say.

Hackers hit hundreds of stores and raised refrigerator temperatures to as high as 50 degrees Celsius. Large quantities of food were spoiled, causing financial losses. It remains unclear who was behind the attack and whether a ransom demand will follow. Estonia must also be prepared for a similar threat.

Toomas Lepik, a cybersecurity analyst at Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), said things like this can happen and the threat is very real. Estonia has not experienced a problem like the one in France, at least to his knowledge, but that does not mean something similar could not happen because of mistakes or poor cyber hygiene.

Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs Liisa Pakosta, who is attending a cybersecurity conference in Singapore, described the incident as shocking. She said society must adapt to the reality that cyberattacks are no longer limited to computers and information systems. At the same time, she said Estonia has some of the strictest cybersecurity requirements in the world.

Those requirements cover companies providing vital services, including those responsible for food security, and they must be met. Companies need to keep software up to date, connect systems properly and ensure they are not accessible to just anyone passing by. Pakosta said larger companies responsible for food security are required to undergo audits, though the requirements do not apply to all grocery stores. Both the government and businesses need to invest more in cybersecurity.

"On the one hand, we face financially motivated cyberattacks, but we also face attacks directed against our country or society as a whole. As a digital nation, we all need to pay much more attention to this," Pakosta said.

Estonian supermarket chain Selver is closely monitoring the incident in France to prevent a similar situation at its stores. Communications manager Mariann Järvela said Selver has not experienced any incidents of this kind and is doing everything it can to ensure that it never happens. She said every company and retail chain has its own strict rules and systems, and she believes Selver is well protected against this kind of threat. The consequences in France, she added, are not significantly different from those of a power outage, a scenario for which the chain already conducts emergency preparedness exercises.