Hackers just turned French supermarket freezers into ovens.

This week, attackers took over the software that controls refrigeration at hundreds of stores across France. They pushed temperatures up to 50°C, which is desert-heatwave territory inside a frozen food aisle.

The damage:

Hundreds of stores hit. Carrefour said 80 of its stores were affected. Intermarché owner Les Mousquetaires reported around 150.
Millions of euros in food spoiled. Fresh and frozen stock was ruined.
Fires broke out. According to Reuters, the incident also triggered fires at several stores.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has instructed France’s National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) to investigate, a person in his office said.

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Hundreds of French supermarkets have been hit by a cyber-attack that caused their fridges and freezers to heat up. Read more: https://t.co/8YImvm4UKT pic.twitter.com/Hc73lYMMRg
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) October 12, 2026

France Isn’t Alone: Japan and South Korea Are Under Fire Too

The freezer attack is the strangest in a string of cyberattacks over the past few weeks. Asia has been hit hardest.

Japan: “A state of emergency in cyberspace”

More than 20 major companies disclosed cyberattacks in recent weeks, the Financial Times reported.
Masaaki Taira, who heads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s cybersecurity strategy headquarters, called it a state of emergency in cyberspace.
Reuters, citing TrendAI data, reported that Japan logged more cyber incidents in the first nine months of 2026 than in all of 2025.

South Korea: Banks breached, AI suspected

Breaches at financial institutions exposed data belonging to tens of thousands of customers.
President Lee Jae Myung warned that artificial intelligence (AI) models appear to have been used.
CrowdStrike linked the breaches to a suspected attacker using an open-source AI penetration-testing tool alongside large language models.

Wall Street Is Split on How Much Upside Is Left

Growing AI-linked threats have drawn investors into cybersecurity stocks this year. The pattern held in Seoul on Tuesday. KOSPI fell 5.46%. A chip selloff tied to AI boom worries drove the decline.

SK Hynix fell 10.09%, and Samsung Electronics lost 7.39%. AhnLab, a cybersecurity company, moved the other way, closing 10.51% higher, while Genians also finished up.

AhnLab Stock Performance. Source: Google Finance

Tokyo saw a similar split, with the Nikkei 225 down 1.82% and Cyber Security Cloud up 12.97% to ¥4,180.

AhnLab and Genians had both surged on October 6, after the bank breaches raised expectations of higher security spending, The Herald Business reported. Fitch senior analyst Karen Wu also expects a sector-wide rise in cybersecurity spending, alongside regulatory penalties and compensation costs.

In the US, concerns over AI-driven threats lifted security stocks well before these attacks. The First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF (CIBR) returned about 50% year-to-date.

Analysts differ on how much future demand those gains already reflect. Morgan Stanley sees more room, noting only about 1.5% of enterprise AI investment goes to AI security. It raised its Palo Alto Networks target to $410 from $394.

Bernstein is more cautious, having downgraded Palo Alto Networks on September 17. It argued the rally had pushed prices close to fair value or beyond.

The Korean case adds a real-world example to warnings that AI lowers the bar for attackers. Upcoming quarterly results should show whether rising attacks are turning into bigger security budgets.

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