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Dear {{ first_name | reader }},
Overnight on 11 to 12 October, attackers took over the refrigeration controllers of hundreds of French supermarkets and forced them into a continuous defrost cycle, at up to 50 °C, for about six hours. A second night followed. French cyber authorities now say the campaign is probably still running.
Three days in, the story has a chief executive, several equipment makers, a retail federation, a prosecutor, a finance minister and a European commissioner in it, and the first national count of stores arrived only on day two.
The controllers are for the engineers. This piece follows the communication day by day, and each day ends with what you can use from it. The last two sections give you wording to adapt and questions to put to your own plan.
Enjoy!
A note: this interpretation is mine and the figures will move. The section 'Where this analysis is thin' lists what could not be checked at source.
WAG THE DOG NEWSLETTER | ISSUE WEEK 42, 2026
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Frame your first number, because it will change. Les Mousquetaires revised its store count from about 150 to at least 300 within the same news cycle, and each revision re-fired the story. Publish the figure with a time, a definition and the hour of your next update.
Settle who owns the sector figure before the state does. The first national count, about 700 of 10,000 supermarkets, came from the finance minister on 13 October, well above the roughly 500 that the chain-level figures add up to.
Read your statement as your biggest customer would. Danfoss's 'limited number' and 'long advised' may be defensible, but within a day the retail federation FCD had demanded 'full transparency' and the president of Les Mousquetaires had predicted a 'legal war'.
When a regulator names your product, the clock starts. CERT-FR listed Dixell and Copeland controllers as compromised on 13 October, and no public response from either company has been reported.
Deny a false link as fast as you would confirm a true one. Ahold Delhaize was reported to see no reason to link its own incident to the French attacks, and the Belgian retail federation Comeos rebutted a claim that Belgium was affected.