The incidents spoiled food at at least six military commissaries, where service members and their families can purchase groceries. Investigators are also communicating with French counterparts over a similar cyberattack that disrupted refrigeration systems at supermarkets across France earlier this month, Reuters reported.
The Pentagon has not disclosed the investigation’s progress or whether officials have determined what caused the malfunctions or who might be responsible.
***
A spokesperson for the US Department of Defense said that a unit of US Cyber Command was “working in close coordination with interagency and law enforcement partners,” without providing further details.
The US Army Criminal Investigation Division confirmed that its Cyber Field Office was involved in the investigation and was working with French law enforcement to better understand refrigeration outages in Europe.
The August incidents affected at least six military commissaries, according to a Reuters review of contemporaneous social media posts and website updates published by the installations. In at least one case, the cooling equipment appeared to have been manipulated rather than simply shut down.
The Fort Huachuca military installation in Arizona said in an August 26 Facebook post that its freezer had entered a defrost mode that heated the food, leaving it spoiled.
The incidents and the possibility of cyber sabotage were first reported by the blog Signal and Silence on August 28. However, the Pentagon’s treatment of the cases as a suspected hack and investigators’ contacts with French counterparts are being reported by Reuters for the first time.
A cyberattack has already disrupted commercial refrigeration systems in France, affecting more than 350 establishments, according to reports. The attackers reportedly changed temperature settings on cooling units, causing frozen food to spoil and, in some cases, equipment to catch fire.
A supermarket owner previously estimated that the French incident could cost tens of millions of euros nationwide.
Cybersecurity experts have warned that refrigeration systems can become vulnerable when equipment originally designed for local, in-person maintenance is connected to the internet. Outdated controllers and firmware can create additional opportunities for attackers to gain access.
Reuters could not establish whether the same refrigeration controller brands involved in the French incidents were used at the affected US military bases.
The potential attacks have raised concerns about the security of food-storage infrastructure, which plays a critical role in supply chains. Disrupting refrigeration can cause significant food losses even without damaging the wider power or water systems on which communities depend.
Cyberattacks targeting refrigeration equipment have been reported previously. In 2022, Danish engineering company Danfoss said hackers had targeted or accessed obsolete versions of its cold-storage controllers at supermarkets in Russia and Israel. US federal prosecutors also accused a Ukrainian woman in December 2025 of participating in a hacking group that disrupted refrigeration at a meat-processing facility in 2024, ruining more than 2,000 pounds of meat.
The cause of the US military freezer incidents remains unconfirmed, and investigators have not publicly identified any suspects.
