Russia could be behind a spate of cyber attacks on supermarket fridges across Europe, security experts have warned, and there are fears that the UK could be targeted next.
In the latest attack which emerged on Monday, hackers gained remote access to cold storage units in dozens of supermarkets in Belgium, Sweden, Ireland, Luxembourg and Estonia, causing tens of thousands of pounds worth of food to be spoiled.
It came weeks after fridges in grocery stores across France were also targeted.
Why Martha Stewart apologised for her Halloween costume
Martha Stewart has apologised for dressing as a homeless person for Halloween, and admitted she “really screwed up”.
The 85-year-old lifestyle guru, who is worth roughly $400m, posted a now deleted photo of herself wearing torn clothes, dirt on her face and a sign saying “I am hungry help me!!!”
Quick to receive backlash
- Stewart said her costume was intended to bring “more awareness to a very serious subject”.
- The post was quick to receive backlash in the comments.
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Stewart’s apology
It’s hard to admit when you’ve really screwed up. My earlier statement didn’t go far enough. I know many people are suffering economically. Wearing a costume like I did was insensitive and not funny. I am very sorry.
martha stewart
Stewart’s career
Stewart gained a reputation as a domestic authority in the 1980s after publishing a series of lifestyle books.
She founded her highly successful magazine in 1990, which led to the launch of her eponymous lifestyle TV show three years later.
- In 2004 she was sentenced to five months in prison after being found guilty of lying about the nature of a stock sale three years prior.
How fake alerts for nuclear warning were sent in Ukraine
Millions of Ukrainians were told that a Russian nuclear strike was imminent after a suspected cyber attack by Moscow.
Four messages, posted to Ukraine’s nationwide Air Alert app at 10.48pm on Sunday, warned about an incoming strike by one of Moscow’s Oreshnik missiles – but it wasn’t true.
Hackers interfere with app
Unknown hackers had interfered with the app, causing the system to send false notifications, according to the Ukrainian air force.
The app is used to share real-time warnings about Russian air strikes to roughly seven million people.
Residents often have minutes to find shelter in the event of an attack after receiving the notification.
However, the Ukrainian air force said it was possible that the app had been compromised by Russia around 10 minutes after the alerts.
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Millions thrown into panic
The Air Alert app appears to have been subjected to enemy influence.
In a post on Telegram, the Ukrainian air force said the app had been hacked and that there was “no radiation threat”. It is believed to be the first time it has been hacked.
The false warnings sent on Sunday night included one posted in Russian, which said: “Don’t worry, an Oreshnik is overhead! A nuclear alert has been activated across Ukraine.”
Russia also hit by cyber attack
There was a separate alert warning of radiation fallout, which instructed Ukrainians to shelter inside, wear a gas mask and consume iodine.
A chemical attack and street fighting alert also went off, ordering residents to seek the closest shelter and cover their faces.
Russia said the mobile app for its emergencies ministry had also been hit by a cyber attack. The ministry was working to restore the app, Russian state media said.
Five teenagers stabbed at Halloween party – what we know
Five teenagers have been seriously injured after being stabbed at a Halloween party in Hampshire, police have said.
The force has appealed for witnesses and anyone with information to come forward.
What we know so far
- Officers were called to Park Road in Chandler’s Ford, near Eastleigh, shortly after 10.30pm on Saturday.
- Hampshire Police said it believes an unknown group gained entry to a party before the stabbings.
- An eyewitness told the BBC they saw someone running out of the house shouting he had been stabbed, and that he was being chased by two people.
- The injured teens – three boys aged 16 and two aged 17 – were taken to hospital.
- Another eyewitness said ambulances and an air ambulance had attended.
- A police cordon remained in place on Sunday while officers continued their investigation.
My thoughts are with the parents of the boys, the boys and the whole community.
Senior investigating officer Det Ch Insp Elizabeth Pirie acknowledged the impact on local residents.
Eastleigh MP Liz Jarvis told the BBC: “The community is in shock this morning that such an awful thing could have occurred.”
A closer look at the detail
- Two churches in the area have opened their doors to offer support.
- Jarvis urged people to not “share information online” and “let the police do their job”.
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Virgin Media O2 plans major job cuts – what we know
Virgin Media O2 is set to cull thousands of jobs as the telecoms giant attempts to plug billions of pounds of debt and navigate a market with increasingly cheaper rivals.
Here is everything we know so far.
Mounting debt and competition
Virgin Media O2’s total debt stands at £27.2bn, according to its latest accounts.
The broadband provider is also tackling competition from smaller, cheaper providers like Hyperoptic, Community Fibre, Gigaclear and YouFibre, as well as behemoths like BT.
BT recently inked a deal to buy rival TalkTalk, which Virgin Media O2 has firmly opposed.
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Senior leadership changes under way
Virgin Media O2 has not finalised the number of roles to be cut, but it is likely to be a large chunk of its 16,000-strong workforce, the BBC reported.
The majority of the affected roles are not customer-facing and a number of senior leadership changes are already under way.
Virgin Media O2 is also expected to review its use of contractors and suppliers alongside the job cuts.
Union working to ‘mitigate number of redundancies’
Disappointing and very unsettling.
Virgin Media O2 declined to comment. The Prospect union, which represents staff, called the cuts “disappointing and very unsettling”.
Prospect’s Noel McClean said the union was “working with employers to explore ways to mitigate the number of redundancies”.
How varying your bedtime could be bad for your heart
Varying your bedtime – including staying up late on weekends or doing shift work – could be bad for your heart and increase the risk of strokes, according to new research.
Sleep experts also found that varying the length of sleep too much – like having a long lie-in or pulling an all-nighter, may also have poor health outcomes.
Increased risk of heart problems
The study looked at several factors: how many hours a person slept each night, how much of the night was spent in light, deep and REM sleep, as well as how long a person was awake after first falling asleep.
- Researchers also looked at whether sleep duration, bedtime and wake-up time changed from night to night over roughly six months, as well as the usual times a person fell asleep and woke up.
- The number of “sleep cycles” completed each night were also examined.
- The results showed changes in sleep timing from night to night were linked to a 20 to 23 per cent higher risk of a heart attack, stroke and heart failure.
While we often focus on getting a full eight hours of sleep every night, having a regular sleep schedule – consistent , wake times, and sleep duration from night to night – is a practical, actionable step anyone can take that may help protect their heart and blood vessels.
Dr Nguyen Minh Tuan Viet, a neuroscientist and Lead researcher ON THE STUDY
A closer look at the study
Researchers analysed sleep data from more than 10,000 adults as part of the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us research programme in the US.
Participants, who had an average age of 53 and had no signs of a heart or metabolic disease, wore sleep tracking devices for around six months.
They were then followed for almost four years to see if they suffered heart issues.
The effects
- 1Every 29-minute increase in sleep from night to night was also linked with a 29 per cent higher risk of having a disease of the heart muscle, which leaves the heart unable to pump enough blood through the body, and a 20 per cent higher risk of heart failure.
- 2Meanwhile, having a greater number of complete “sleep cycles” each night led to a 28 per cent lower risk of atrial arrhythmia, a common type of irregular heartbeat.
- 3In contrast, sleeping longer than usual was linked to a 55 per cent higher risk of heart attack or stroke.
Could the UK see a serious bird flu outbreak?
In the western US state, mink raised for their fur are dying from bird flu.
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Pandemic potential
While scientists have long recognised the pandemic potential of bird flu, the presence in minks takes the threat status to the next level, says Professor Wendy Barclay, a virologist at Imperial College London.
“This creates an even higher risk to humans than before,” she said.
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How the virus could evolve
Minks’ nose and lungs are similar to humans’ – so much so that closely related ferrets are used in research instead of people.
While for most people, flu is relatively mild, the infection causes a surge of deaths every winter.
And every so often, the virus undergoes some major genetic changes leading to a higher toll, which gets called a pandemic flu.
Not easily spread
Bird flu has occasionally spread to poultry farms, as well as some dairy farms in the US. So far, there have been a small number of farm workers who have caught bird flu from animals and died.
Because the virus is adapted to birds, this strain of flu does not seem to spread easily from person to person. But previous research suggests that one genetic change to strains found on US dairy farms could improve transmission to humans.
Autumn outbreak is a red flag
Another worry is that the mink could be perfect incubators, allowing different flu strains to swap genes. Called reassortment, this process is known to have triggered previous human pandemics, including the one in 2009.
Mink can harbour both human and bird flu strains. The fact this mink outbreak is happening in autumn, when human seasonal flu rises, is also a red flag, says Dr Simon Williams, a public health researcher at Swansea University.
He said: “It increases the risk of a virus with pandemic potential reassorting in somebody working on that farm who has seasonal flu.”
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Flu pandemic preparations
- The UK Health Security Agency declined to comment on whether it had taken any specific measures in response to the mink outbreak when asked by The i Paper.
- But the agency’s Dr Richard Puleston said it “stands ready to initiate an appropriate public health response” if needed.
- As of 2025, the NHS fortunately had £25m worth of PPE stockpiled following the Covid-19 pandemic. Rapid diagnostic tests also shouldn’t be overlooked in terms of the UK’s ability to combat an outbreak.
While it is understood no British supermarkets have so far been affected, a security source said there was no reason to suggest the UK would be exempt from being targeted.
And leading cyber experts said the absence of a ransomware element – where hackers demand money in exchange for returning systems to normal – pointed to the possible role of a hostile state like Russia as part of its wider programme of grey zone sabotage.
During the latest hack, temperatures in fridges and freezers, which are linked up to the internet to be controlled more efficiently at scale, were ramped up to 55C.
The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, which is part of the GCHQ spy agency, said it was working with international partners and industry leaders to investigate the attacks.
The NCSC declined to comment on who was responsible. But cyber security experts said there could be a link to a hostile state.
Ciaran Martin, former chief executive of the NCSC, told The i Paper: “It’s a long time since there’s been a cyber attack that has been so baffling in terms of who is behind it. Technically it’s pretty basic hacking though the scale of it is unusually large.
“The culprits aren’t cyber criminals as no one is making money. It’s unlikely to be teenage hackers in their parents’ house as they want publicity. That leaves nation states.
“They often hack because they want to achieve a particular outcome or send a signal. But what is the objective here? What’s the signal?”
Tom Hegel, distinguished threat researcher and research lead at cyber security firm SentinelOne, said: “These types of attacks typically fall into three main categories: ransomware extortion, political/ideological hacktivism, or nation-state level cyber operations.
“Ransomware groups usually try to get paid, and hacktivists usually want the public credit. In this case, neither has happened which makes it start to look like the low-cost, deniable sabotage Europe has been dealing with for several years, from damaged undersea cables to warehouse arson and GPS jamming.”
Russia has long been suspected of tampering with critical undersea telecommunications cables and energy infrastructure and the other types of grey warfare referenced by Hegel.
He added: “We saw a similar pattern at US military commissaries in August, when freezers on several bases failed within a day of each other and military investigators opened cases. We can’t say the two incidents are linked.
“What they share is the target: refrigeration controllers that sit on the internet, often running old firmware with publicly known security vulnerabilities.”
Hegel described retail as “an easy target” because of the sheer numbers of refrigerators, and how much of it is installed by contractors who “rarely loop in with the security team”.
“Grocery margins are thin and stock perishes within hours, so any disruption hurts quickly and in public,” Hegel added.
“The gap between a nuisance and a serious incident often comes down to how much control a victim has exposed to the internet. With thousands of these interfaces still online, I expect more incidents like this.”
The Danish engineering firm Danfoss, which supplies fridges to supermarkets targeted in both the French hacks last month and the latest attack in Sweden, is also a supplier to Tesco and Sainsbury’s in the UK, although no British stores have been affected so far.
A security insider said of the risk to the UK: “It entirely depends on what systems our supermarkets are using and how up to date they are.
“There’s no obvious strategic reason why the UK should be exempted from targeting here.”
An NCSC spokesperson said: “The NCSC is working with its international partners and industry to fully understand details of an incident.”
The NCSC is urging retailers to follow its guidance on operational technology – or cyber – security and is working closely with the sector, including sharing threat intelligence and identifying any vulnerabilities.
The agency has also recently held meetings with senior representatives from the food retail sector to highlight how they can better protect their computer systems and stock.
The heightened threat to supermarket food comes just days after the British government issued new advice to households to stockpile enough bottled water, tinned food and other essential supplies for three days in case of emergency including cyber attacks that cause widespread damage and disruption.
The British Retail Consortium said it was liaising with supermarkets about the latest hacks across Europe.
Graham Wynn of the BRC told the : “Retailers invest heavily in their cyber security and are currently working with the National Cyber Security Centre to ensure their fridges and freezers are secure as possible against potential attacks.”