Army Investigators Probe Freezer Failures at Military Commissaries and Ask Whether a Cyberattack Was Behind Them
At least six base stores lost refrigeration in late August. Army CID's cyber office is working with French police, who are looking at a separate attack that heated refrigerators at hundreds of French supermarkets. No cause has been named.
The Army is investigating whether a cyberattack knocked out refrigeration at military grocery stores, Fox News reports.
The probe. An Army Criminal Investigation Division spokesperson confirmed to Fox that the agency's Cyber Field Office is working with the Defense Commissary Agency and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service on the August failures. Investigators are also working with French law enforcement on a series of refrigeration outages in Europe to see whether the incidents are linked. Fox says the story was first reported by Reuters.
The failures. In late August at least six commissaries, the on-base stores where service members buy food, suddenly lost refrigeration. Fort Huachuca in Arizona said in an Aug. 26 Facebook post that its units "went into defrost mode" overnight and that "ALL frozen food has spoiled." Fox lists F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, Naval Station Newport in Rhode Island, Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi, Travis Air Force Base in California and Fort Irwin in California as other affected sites. In at least one case, Reuters reported, the units were set to higher temperatures overnight instead of simply shutting off.
The French case. Fox says that several weeks ago hackers hit hundreds of French supermarkets and pushed refrigerators to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, spoiling large amounts of food and sparking fires across Europe. The Paris prosecutor's office confirmed the attack and called it large-scale.
Note for readers: the Army has not said what caused the U.S. failures, and Fox does not report any finding that the two events are connected. The cyberattack question is what investigators are examining.