Six military freezers went bad in August. Was it a cyber attack?

A Marine searches for frozen Commissary items in a CATC Camp Fuji mess hall freezer in March 2023. Song Jordan/U.S. Marine Corps

After food spoiled at commissaries, Pentagon investigators are looking at similar incidents in France.

The Pentagon is investigating a suspected cyberattack behind freezer malfunctions that spoiled food at military bases across the United States in August, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

The outages affected some six commissaries — the on-base grocery stores serving military personnel — per the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the situation. At Fort Huachuca in Arizona, officials reported that a freezer had entered defrost mode and heated its contents, leaving food spoiled.

Reuters first reported Thursday that investigators were treating the incidents as a possible hack. It’s unclear who might be responsible or whether investigators have conclusively determined what caused the failures.

Cyber Command and various Defense Department law-enforcement units are probing the incident. French authorities are also working with officials examining the matter. Earlier this month, hackers overrode temperature controls on commercial refrigeration equipment at more than 350 French establishments, forcing supermarkets to discard spoiled food.

The investigation draws attention to the computers that control everyday equipment used to store and handle food, an often overlooked area of cybersecurity where a hack can spoil supplies or interrupt distribution of goods.

The unusual U.S. outages and the possibility of hacking were initially flagged in August by the Signal and Silence blog . Stars and Stripes subsequently reported the involvement of military investigators, and The Telegraph also reported officials’ contact with French authorities.

A 2021 DHS assessment of threats to food and agriculture specifically identified refrigeration failures and shipping delays as cybersecurity risks that could cause spoilage and shortages.

The Food and Agriculture Information Sharing and Analysis Center, an industry group that shares cyber threat intelligence on the nation's food supply, has warned that attackers are targeting internet-accessible industrial controls that may not have optimal cyberdefenses in place.

The agri-food sector’s sensitivity to downtime often gives ransomware groups leverage to demand payment, the organization said in a separate report .

Lawmakers have sought to improve federal protections. A bipartisan group reintroduced the Farm and Food Cybersecurity Act in 2025, following an earlier proposal introduced in 2024.

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2023年3月，一名海军陆战队员在富士营CATC食堂的冰柜里寻找冷冻的食品杂货。宋乔丹/美国海军陆战队

在军需品商店发生食品变质事件后，五角大楼调查人员正在调查法国发生的类似事件。

据一位熟悉此事的美国官员透露，五角大楼正在调查一起疑似网络攻击事件，该事件导致美国各地军事基地的冷冻设备发生故障，造成食物变质。

据一位不愿透露姓名的官员称，此次停电影响了大约六家军需品商店——这些商店是为军人提供服务的基地内杂货店。在亚利桑那州的华楚卡堡，官员报告称，一台冷冻柜进入了除霜模式，导致柜内食物变质。

路透社周四率先报道称，调查人员正在将这些事件作为可能的黑客攻击事件进行调查。目前尚不清楚谁应对此负责，也不清楚调查人员是否已最终确定故障原因。

网络司令部和国防部多个执法部门正在调查这起事件。法国当局也正与负责调查此事的官员合作。本月初，黑客入侵了法国350多家商户的商用冷藏设备温度控制系统，迫使超市丢弃变质食品。

这项调查引起了人们对控制日常食品储存和处理设备的计算机的关注，这是网络安全领域一个经常被忽视的领域，黑客攻击可能会破坏食品供应或中断货物配送。

美国网络异常中断以及可能遭受黑客攻击的情况，最早由 Signal and Silence 博客在 8 月份提出。《星条旗报》随后报道了军方调查人员的介入，《每日电讯报》也报道了官员与法国当局的接触。

2021 年美国国土安全部对食品和农业面临的威胁进行了评估，特别指出冷藏故障和运输延误是可能导致食品变质和短缺的网络安全风险。

食品和农业信息共享与分析中心是一个行业组织，负责共享有关国家食品供应的网络威胁情报。该中心警告称，攻击者正在瞄准可通过互联网访问的工业控制系统，而这些控制系统可能没有部署最佳的网络防御措施。

该组织在另一份报告中表示，农产品食品行业对停机时间的敏感性常常使勒索软件组织有机可乘，从而索要赎金。

立法者们一直致力于加强联邦层面的保护。一个两党小组在2024年提出一项早期提案后，于2025年重新提出了《农业和食品网络安全法案》。

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