From supermarket freezers to satellites: Europe’s cyber vulnerability exposed

Uriel Araujo, Anthropology PhD, is a social scientist specializing in ethnic and religious conflicts, with extensive research on geopolitical dynamics and cultural interactions.

Europe is currently facing an unprecedented wave of cyberattacks. They have compromised supermarket refrigeration systems across at least 11 European nations, exposing critical weaknesses in seemingly ordinary food supply infrastructure. Hackers remotely raised temperatures to as high as 50 degrees Celsius, forcing retailers to discard tons of spoiled food.

Even French blood banks were targeted, although authorities apparently managed to protect their supplies. The incidents followed an October 11 attack affecting around 700 French supermarkets. The criminals exploited weaknesses in internet-connected refrigeration controllers.

Researchers had previously flagged vulnerabilities in Danfoss and Copeland refrigeration platforms. Danfoss confirmed that affected systems ran “outdated firmware”, illustrating how neglected security can threaten essential services.

Beyond food supplies, a July 29 cyberattack interfered with eight CEVA Logistics warehouses in the continent, delaying retail shipments. Moreover, in September 2025, an attack on Collins Aerospace software disrupted Heathrow, Brussels and Berlin airports.

Responsibility for the incidents remains contested. While Russia has faced unproved accusations, that Moscow denies, France in turn accused Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on November 9 of orchestrating the October refrigeration attacks.

Finger-pointing aside, the November breaches have not been attributed to a single perpetrator, and their connections are unclear. The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) had already warned, in September, that interconnected systems and supplier dependencies were aggravating vulnerabilities.

ENISA’s 2026 threat assessment found that “denial-of-service” (DoS) intrusions accounted for 51% of recorded incidents in 2025 - although these were predominantly low-impact disruptions. Ransomware, by contrast, remained the most consequential short-term threat.

Europe’s cyber risks thus range from nuisance attacks to severe obstructions of essential services. These episodes reveal a broader problem: the bloc’s digital infrastructure is increasingly interconnected - yet its resilience has not necessarily kept pace with its technological sophistication.

In this context, the European digital sovereignty paradox is once again under the spotlight. As the bloc seeks greater technological autonomy, it is simultaneously deepening cooperation with Washington through Pax Silica, a US-led initiative encompassing semiconductors, artificial intelligence, critical minerals and secure supply chains.

The European Commission signed the initiative in June, presenting cooperation with trusted partners as a means of strengthening technological sovereignty. Yet the arrangement, as I previously argued, risks reinforcing Europe’s dependence on American cloud infrastructure, advanced chips and private digital platforms.

President Donald Trump’s technological strategy, meanwhile, prioritizes American industrial interests. Although cooperation with Washington offers some genuine advantages, dependence on foreign suppliers can also create political vulnerabilities, complicating the European bloc’s ability to act independently.

To be clear, the attacks were neither a consequence of dependence on American tech nor linked to Pax Silica. Rather, they highlight operational resilience as yet another dimension of digital sovereignty.

Control over technological supply chains means little if essential infrastructure remains vulnerable to relatively simple cyber intrusions. Technological sovereignty and cybersecurity are related but distinct challenges - even European-manufactured systems can be vulnerable when basic security precautions are neglected.

The implications here reach further still: a recent Table.Briefings investigation highlighted an underreported weakness or “blind spot” - many satellites in fact lack adequate systems for detecting cyber intrusions, thereby leaving European space infrastructure exposed. Digital insecurity now extends from supermarket freezers to orbital infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the October 29 cyberattack against Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, reportedly involved approximately $6.3 billion in compromised assets - potentially making it the largest crypto theft ever.

In this case, the FBI has attributed the theft to North Korea’s hackers known as TraderTraitor. By contrast, responsibility for the broader wave of attacks against European refrigeration systems remains unresolved. This illustrates both the complexity and the geopolitical sensitivity of cyberattack attribution.

The Binance breach, in any case, albeit unrelated, exposed financial infrastructure vulnerabilities. Stablecoin issuers froze billions, revealing persistent centralized control even within ostensibly decentralized finance. This means cybersecurity today has become as strategically important as energy security and maritime trade routes.

Just as disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz can threaten global energy supplies, cyberattacks against payment networks, logistics systems and industrial controllers - in the new digital “sea” - can unsettle economic activity across borders. Digital infrastructure has become a strategic domain in its own right.

Again, the consequences extend well beyond the continent: for emerging powers seeking alternatives to Western-dominated financial systems, technological diversification without effective cybersecurity could merely reproduce such existing vulnerabilities.

Countries such as Brazil, India and other BRICS members therefore face a common challenge: developing independent technological capabilities while ensuring that their infrastructure remains secure, interoperable and resilient.

The point is that, in an increasingly polycentric world, control over semiconductors, cloud services, satellite networks and digital payment systems is becoming inseparable from traditional geopolitical power.

Ultimately, the test of technological sovereignty is whether states can maintain essential services when their digital infrastructure comes under attack, regardless of who manufactured or operates it. Without operational resilience, technological sovereignty risks remaining an empty concept.