While the world’s eyes have been on the widespread student unrest that has been happening in France, there is another story that people may have been missed that has potentially bigger economic and personal consequences for Americans. In October, hackers took over the refrigeration systems at hundreds of supermarkets and raised the temperatures in freezers and coolers ruining and spoiling all of their contents. Everything from milk and dairy products, to frozen meals and vegetables had to be thrown away because it was no longer safe to consume. While the world studies what happened there, a similar-looking incident hit happened in late summer and much closer to home. In August, freezers in several U.S. military commissaries were hacked ruining all of their contents as well. The Pentagon is now investigating a suspected cyberattack. It sounds small. It isn’t.
What Happened in France
During the night of October 11, attackers took remote control of refrigeration controllers at supermarkets forcing the equipment into a defrost cycle with the food still inside, raising temperatures to as high as 50 degrees Celsius (122°F). Food spoiled and several stores had fires. At least 350 supermarkets were hit, and the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation. As of today no group had claimed responsibility, and three cyber experts told Reuters the attack appeared easy to pull off.
What Happened on U.S. Bases
Nextgov reports that the Pentagon is investigating a suspected cyberattack behind freezer failures at about six military commissaries, the on-base grocery stores, in August. At Fort Huachuca in Arizona, the base said all of its freezers went into defrost mode overnight and all frozen food spoiled. Stars and Stripes confirmed outages at six installations, including Fort Irwin, F.E. Warren, Naval Station Newport, and Columbus and Travis Air Force Bases. Cyber Command and Defense Department law enforcement are investigating, with French authorities. As of this writing, it is not yet clear who is responsible, and what caused the failures to occur.
The Story That Almost Slipped By
The August outages got little attention outside military outlets. Stars and Stripes and Military Times reported them, and a Substack called Signal and Silence raised the possibility of a hack. But as far as we can tell, major national outlets weren’t covering it. The Pentagon wouldn’t speculate on the cause, and the story has since drifted away from public awareness. It took the French attack and a Reuters report on October 29 to put a suspected cyberattack on the national radar. Regional papers are now catching up, like the East Bay Times on November 2, which covers Travis Air Force Base.
Until recently, no one would have had a reason to connect a supermarket in France with a commissary at Travis Air Force Base. They’d have looked like two unrelated stories: a failing freezer at a base in California, and a grocery chain’s trouble overseas. Whether or not these two incidents turn out to be linked, treating them as separate is a habit we can no longer afford. Threats don’t always announce themselves with a missile or a siren. They can arrive through the equipment we use every day, and they can look unrelated until someone lines them up. Connecting those dots, for the people in Washington who have to act on them, is why mtf.news exists.
A New Terrain of Warfare
The lesson is about the terrain. Modern conflict can start inside ordinary equipment, in places no one thinks of as a battlefield: a commissary freezer, a thermostat, a supply system. Spotting it takes people at every level, from base managers to cyber specialists, who know to ask whether a strange failure could be an attack, and a way to compare notes across bases, agencies, and allies.
Kevin Cirilli3 min readWhat We Do and Don’t Know
We don’t know yet that the two incidents are connected, or who is behind either. Reuters reports that investigators haven’t established whether the commissaries even used Danfoss equipment or whether the incidents share a cause. French authorities said the compromised controllers included models from Danfoss, Copeland, and Dixell, and reports said older versions of Danfoss software were targeted. Those are well-known European and American brands, not Chinese ones. As of October 13, no vulnerability had been named.
That is the point. The lesson isn’t “foreign equipment is bad.” It’s that nobody was watching who could reach this equipment, who made it, and who kept it updated.
Why It Matters
The attackers used a built-in function, defrost, at the wrong time. Equipment connected for convenience becomes a lever for anyone who can reach it. The Department of Homeland Security warned in a 2021 assessment that refrigeration failures could cause spoilage and shortages, and an industry group says attackers are targeting internet-accessible industrial controls.
Believe it or not but food and its supply chain (which includes refrigeration systems) is an infrastructure as well as a national security issue. Any type of hack or disruption to those systems that can ruin those items (and whatever form they take), has huge implications to our public health, public safety as well as our economy. When your hack creates food spoilage that’s a hack on our readiness and daily life.
From the Supermarket to the Kitchen
In April, the NSA, FBI, and CISA warned that China-linked hackers are taking over home routers and smart TVs to hide their attacks. Because our appliances are increasingly connected to the internet as well as one another,few of us know what’s happening inside all of those devices, or who can reach us without any of us suspecting they are there.
The Case for Building
This is where we think the freezer story leads: to rebuilding the capacity to make connected equipment right. That means more than buying American. It means making things here, with security designed in, support that lasts, and people who can build and repair them. Apollo Global Management argues a rebuild of American industry is already underway. The freezer hacks show what it should aim for: equipment we can trust because we know where it came from and who maintains it.
Sources: Nextgov (David DiMolfetta, Oct. 29, 2026); Reuters via NBC News (Oct. 13, 2026); INCIBE-CERT; Al Jazeera; The Hacker News; DHS; Food and Ag-ISAC; CISA; Stars and Stripes; Military Times; Stars and Stripes (Sept. 1); Signal and Silence; East Bay Times; Apollo Global Management.
