Freezer Cyber-Attacks Draw Italy's Intelligence Chiefs to Rome

Supermarket freezer systems in at least nine European countries were hit by a suspected coordinated cyber-attack on Monday, prompting the European Union to warn that the disruption appeared aimed at the bloc's food supply chain, The Local Italy reported. The BBC said problems were logged from Estonia and Sweden to Portugal and Italy, and that many retailers were forced to discard food from cabinets that could no longer be kept cold.

On Tuesday the Italian government held emergency talks with the country's intelligence chiefs to assess the fallout, The Local Italy reported. Convening the intelligence services rather than health or agriculture officials suggests how Rome has classified the event, though the report gives no account of what was discussed or decided.

The two reports differ on scale: the BBC put the number of affected countries at ten, The Local Italy at least nine. Both describe interference with refrigeration rather than with payment or stock systems, which places the incident in the territory of food safety and waste as much as of data security.