Dutch-Belgian supermarket group Ahold Delhaize has confirmed that malicious activity was responsible for the cybersecurity incident that disrupted its operations across Europe and the United States, forcing the company to take websites, applications and other computer systems offline.

In an official statement issued on Monday, 19 October, the company announced that it had filed a formal complaint with Dutch police and was cooperating with national cybersecurity authorities. Although physical supermarkets have remained open, the disruption has affected online shopping, deliveries and some distribution operations.

The company said investigators had so far found no evidence that sensitive information belonging to customers, employees or business partners had been taken. However, its investigation remains open, and the identity and objectives of those responsible have not been publicly established.

Online services interrupted across several countries

The disruption began on 12 October, when Ahold Delhaize detected suspicious activity within its information technology infrastructure.

The group responded by taking a number of systems offline as a precaution, affecting most of its retail brands in Europe and the United States. The consequences varied considerably between businesses, with some experiencing prolonged interruption to digital services while others were able to restore operations more quickly.

Albert Heijn, the Netherlands’ largest supermarket chain, has been particularly affected. Its website and mobile application have returned online, but home grocery deliveries are not expected to resume until Friday, 23 October.

Orders scheduled before that date have been cancelled, while the company continues preparations for a gradual restoration of its online delivery service.

The incident also interrupted some supply and distribution arrangements, resulting in shortages on supermarket shelves in parts of the Netherlands and Belgium.

In Belgium, Delhaize has restored its online shopping operations. Certain promotional and personalised services were still experiencing difficulties, although the parent company confirmed that its Belgian e-commerce business was operational again.

Dutch retailers Etos and Gall & Gall have also restored their websites. Meanwhile, several American supermarket brands owned by Ahold Delhaize have continued to experience service interruptions.

The group said it expected additional online services in the United States to become available over the coming days.

Dutch authorities investigate

Ahold Delhaize said it notified the Netherlands’ National Cyber Security Centre within 24 hours of detecting the malicious activity.

The company has subsequently provided updates to the authorities and, on Monday, confirmed that a formal police report had been submitted.

Chief executive Frans Muller defended the decision to shut down digital systems, arguing that the investigation had demonstrated the necessity of taking preventive action.

The company has not identified the perpetrators, confirmed whether ransomware was involved or disclosed the technical method used to gain access to its infrastructure.

These distinctions are important because malicious activity does not necessarily establish that information was stolen or that attackers obtained control over every system subsequently taken offline.

The retailer has instead described a controlled restoration process intended to ensure that affected systems can be brought back into operation without exposing the business to further risks.

Ahold Delhaize operates thousands of supermarkets and related retail businesses, including Albert Heijn, Delhaize, Food Lion, Giant Food, Hannaford and Stop & Shop.

Its geographical reach means that a disruption originating within shared corporate infrastructure can affect several national markets, even where individual retail chains maintain separate commercial operations.

Cybersecurity becomes a supply-chain concern

The attack comes amid increasing scrutiny of the vulnerability of European food retailers to digital disruption.

Earlier this month, investigators in France began examining cyberattacks against refrigeration control systems used by hundreds of supermarkets.

Those incidents reportedly affected equipment at chains including Carrefour, Intermarché and Monoprix, with some retailers forced to discard products after refrigeration systems malfunctioned.

There is no established connection between the French incidents and the attack affecting Ahold Delhaize.

Nevertheless, both episodes illustrate the dependence of modern retail operations on interconnected digital systems supporting stock management, refrigeration, logistics, payments and customer services.

The consequences of a serious cyber incident can extend beyond the loss of access to websites. Interruptions to inventory systems, warehouse operations or communications with suppliers can affect the availability of physical products.

This creates particular difficulties for food retailers, where delays in transport and storage can result in the loss of perishable goods.

European regulatory implications

The incident also draws attention to the European Union’s NIS2 cybersecurity framework, which establishes stricter risk-management and incident-reporting obligations for organisations operating in designated sectors.

Food production, processing and distribution are among the activities covered by the directive, although its application to particular companies and operations depends on the relevant legal definitions and national implementing arrangements.

The legislation requires organisations within its scope to establish appropriate cybersecurity protections, address supply-chain risks and notify competent authorities of significant incidents.

Separately, the General Data Protection Regulation establishes notification requirements where personal-data breaches meet the relevant reporting threshold.

Ahold Delhaize’s statement that it has found no evidence of sensitive data being taken does not conclude the technical investigation, but it means that a confirmed theft of personal information should not presently be presented as a fact.

For the company, the immediate challenge remains restoring online services while maintaining normal supermarket operations. The wider commercial consequences, including the cost of the interruption and its effect on sales, have not yet been quantified publicly.

A cyberattack affecting approximately 700 supermarkets in France has exposed serious weaknesses in the digital systems used to control commercial refrigeration, raising concerns about the vulnerability of European food distribution networks and other essential infrastructure.

The attack began overnight on 11–12th October, when intruders gained access to remotely managed refrigeration equipment and altered operating settings, causing refrigerators and freezers to overheat.

Stores belonging to several major supermarket chains were affected, including Intermarché, Netto, Coopérative U, Carrefour and Monoprix. Some were forced to discard substantial quantities of fresh and frozen food.

French Finance Minister Roland Lescure confirmed that approximately 700 of the country’s 10,000 supermarkets had been affected, although the severity of the disruption varied between locations.

The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the attack, including the damage caused by destroyed merchandise and reported fires.

The incident has drawn attention to industrial control systems that are routinely connected to the internet but may receive less cybersecurity protection than corporate networks and customer databases.

Refrigeration systems remotely manipulated

Investigators have established that refrigeration equipment was targeted through vulnerabilities associated with remote monitoring and control systems.

The French cybersecurity authorities identified compromises involving products supplied by Danish manufacturer Danfoss and American company Copeland.

Some of the affected systems used older equipment that no longer received regular security updates.

According to information released by the companies and cybersecurity specialists, certain industrial controllers had been accessible through public internet connections, creating opportunities for unauthorised access.

Hackers reportedly manipulated defrost cycles and increased temperature settings, preventing equipment from maintaining the cold conditions required to preserve food.

The attack affected approximately 300 Intermarché and Netto stores, while Coopérative U reported disruption at around 80 outlets.

Several retailers managed to contain the damage, but others lost substantial quantities of stock.

The consequences extended beyond malfunctioning equipment. Businesses faced the cost of replacing spoiled food, repairing refrigeration systems and restoring normal operations.

The precise financial damage is still being assessed, although estimates from the retail sector indicate that losses across France could amount to tens of millions of euros.

Vulnerabilities in connected equipment

The incident illustrates the security problems created by the growing use of internet-connected industrial equipment.

Modern refrigeration installations allow contractors and maintenance specialists to monitor temperatures, adjust settings and diagnose faults remotely.

These arrangements can reduce operating costs and improve efficiency, but they also create additional access points that attackers may exploit.

Cybersecurity specialists have identified vulnerabilities in commercial refrigeration platforms manufactured by Danfoss and Copeland.

The manufacturers subsequently addressed identified flaws, although older or unsupported equipment remained a concern.

A critical problem for businesses is that industrial machinery often remains operational for many years after its original software has become obsolete.

Replacing entire refrigeration installations can involve substantial expense and operational disruption, encouraging operators to retain equipment that may no longer meet contemporary cybersecurity standards.

The risks are particularly difficult to manage when responsibility for maintenance, software updates and network security is divided between retailers, equipment suppliers and external contractors.

France’s delayed cybersecurity legislation

The attack has renewed scrutiny of France’s implementation of the European Union’s NIS2 Directive, which is intended to strengthen cybersecurity across sectors providing important economic and public services.

The directive establishes common requirements covering risk management, incident reporting, organisational responsibility and protection against cyber threats.

Its scope extends beyond traditional critical infrastructure such as energy, telecommunications and transport to include certain businesses involved in food production, processing and distribution.

EU member states were required to incorporate the directive into national legislation by 17 October 2024.

France was among the countries that received a formal warning from the European Commission in May 2025 over incomplete implementation.

French cybersecurity specialists have since warned that delays have complicated efforts to establish consistent obligations for organisations operating industrial and commercial systems.

However, NIS2 does not automatically cover every supermarket. Its application depends on the nature and size of an organisation and the provisions of national implementing legislation.

The incident therefore raises questions not only about the pace of legislative implementation but also about the practical protection of equipment already in use.

Wider implications for European infrastructure

The disruption demonstrates how a cyberattack can cause physical damage without directly targeting a conventional industrial facility.

Unlike breaches intended to steal customer information, the French incident interfered with machinery responsible for preserving essential products.

The distinction is important for European policymakers, who increasingly face threats to infrastructure that combines digital controls with physical operations.

The European Union’s cybersecurity agency ENISA has organised cross-border exercises to test how authorities and companies would respond to disruption affecting essential services.

The attack itself has been established, but responsibility for it has not been publicly attributed.

French authorities have said there is no immediate threat to national food supplies. Nevertheless, the destruction of merchandise and interruption of ordinary retail operations have demonstrated the potential economic consequences of weaknesses in relatively commonplace equipment.

The continuing investigation must establish how access was obtained, which systems were compromised and whether the vulnerabilities were known to operators before the attack.

For Brussels and national regulators, the case provides a practical test of whether European cybersecurity legislation can translate into effective protection for the connected equipment on which ordinary commercial activities increasingly depend.

Debris from a Russian drone damaged Cosmogony, a painting that set a national record in Ukraine, the Korsaks Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art in Lutsk, where the artwork was exhibited, reported on 14 October. A fire destroyed part of the painting’s final section, titled The Future, according to the statement.

Russian drones continue to attack Ukraine. Overnight into 15 October alone, Ukrainian air defense forces downed or suppressed 536 Russian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In recent days, Lutsk, a city in northwestern Ukraine, has been among the cities damaged by Russian attacks. Russian UAV attacks set fire to an oil depot, a wholesale warehouse, and a shopping center. At the museum, located on the shopping center’s premises, the fire damaged Ukraine’s largest painting, which covers a canvas of more than 2,000 square meters.

Russian attack damages museum in Lutsk

A fire broke out at the Adrenalin City shopping and entertainment complex, where the museum is located, Suspilne Lutsk reported. The blaze damaged the last of the painting’s six sections, according to the report.

“By destroying art and culture, they are also trying to destroy Ukrainians,” Tetiana Repnytska, director of the Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art in Lutsk, told Suspilne Lutsk.

Museum staff also had to evacuate more than 300 works by Ukrainian artist Emma Andiievska, which were exhibited alongside Cosmogony, Oles Tomakh, the museum’s chief curator, told Suspilne Lutsk. Some works could not be removed in time, resulting in shattered glass. However, the museum’s other exhibition halls were unaffected, the chief curator said.

The museum is weighing whether to fully restore the damaged fragment or keep the fire’s traces as a reminder of the war, and will decide after consulting the artist, Petro Antyp, and restoration specialists, it said. Repnytska told Suspilne Lutsk that the painting’s authors could also create a new section.

“Despite the shelling, we will continue to develop contemporary Ukrainian art and preserve it,” the museum director said.

Cosmogony—Ukraine’s largest painting

Artist Petro Antyp began working on the painting in November 2022, Suspilne Lutsk reported, and it took almost two years to complete, according to the museum’s website. The painting covers an area of 2,086 square meters.

In September 2024, the project set a national record as Ukraine’s largest painting.

The artwork explores the evolution of the universe, Earth, nature, humanity, society, culture, and science. Its six sections combine myths, legends, scientific theories, and symbols from different cultures, according to the museum’s website.

The project extends beyond the canvas, as the museum presents a multimedia performance that combines light, sound, and art.

Civilians killed and injured in Russia’s latest attack on Lutsk

Around noon on 14 October, a Russian jet-powered Shahed drone attacked Lutsk. Drone debris damaged a wholesale goods warehouse and a residential building, Roman Romaniuk, acting head of the Volyn Regional Military Administration, told Suspilne.

Falling drone debris sparked a large fire at the Yevrohurt wholesale warehouse. A nine-story residential building on Sobornosti Avenue was also damaged, Romaniuk later reported on social media.

Six people were killed in the strike on the warehouse: five were found at the scene, and another person died in the hospital. Eleven more people were injured, Romaniuk said.

Two other people, including a child, were injured in the residential building. Twelve people remained hospitalized, one of whom was in serious condition, according to the report.

Bulgaria summoned Russia’s ambassador to Sofia after two ships were hit off the country’s coast, as concerns mount over the security of Black Sea shipping.

The most unsettling failure in digital payments may not be a black screen. Imagine a fraud-detection model that remains online but suddenly flags thousands of legitimate transfers as suspicious. Banks may see functioning servers while customers see rejected payments, delayed salaries and complaints no single institution can explain. This is a hypothetical scenario, not a […]

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The Houthi attack mixed together suicide drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. Because these weapons travel at significantly different speeds, the drones were launched first, followed by the cruise missiles and lastly by the ballistic missiles. Reports say the entire attack on October 10, starting at around 3PM local time, lasted around 45 minutes. The […]

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Attacks on commercial vessels off the Black Sea’s western coast are on the rise, threatening already-choked trade flows in the region while testing NATO’s readiness to react.

The last A-10 Thunderbolt II assigned to Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, left the installation on September 22. The departure marks the end of nearly five decades of Warthog operations, including tactics development and testing, at the Air Force’s most high-profile fighter base. It also reflects a broader shift in which close air support expertise and some associated missions are supposedly being distributed among the F-15, F-16, and F-35 communities, although the move is controversial, to say the least.

Nearly 70 airmen assigned to Nellis gathered along the flight line to salute the aircraft as it departed. The final takeoff closes a chapter that began in 1977, when the first A-10 arrived at the base, which subsequently became a major center for developing and refining the aircraft’s operational employment.

Over the decades, Nellis-based units worked on the A-10’s software, avionics, and precision weapons capabilities, while the U.S. Air Force Weapons School’s 66th Weapons Squadron trained more than 300 A-10 weapons officers through approximately 100 classes. Many of the tactics in the A-10’s playbook emanated from the base.

The A-10’s departure consequently represents more than the retirement of another aircraft from a Nellis ramp. It also marks the end of a dedicated training and institutional ecosystem that developed around an aircraft specifically designed for close air support.

Earlier this year, Jamie Hunter of TWZ visited the U.S. Air Force A-10 Weapons Instructor Course as it was in the process of closing down, as documented in these exclusive videos:

The Air Force is now attempting to carry at least some of that expertise into a force built around multirole fourth- and fifth-generation fighters.

“We are maintaining the culture of the A-10 by involving as many other fighter communities involved in the close air support mission,” Lt. Col. Ridge Flick, commander of the 66th Weapons Squadron, said. “We are also training F-15 Eagle, F-35 Lightning II and F-16 Fighting Falcon pilots to take on some roles we have had in combat search and rescue.”

The A-10 was developed specifically for close air support, with its design emphasizing survivability at relatively low altitude, weapons employment against ground targets, and the ability to persist in the vicinity of friendly forces. In contrast, the F-16C/D and F-15E/EX were developed primarily as multirole fighters, while the F-35 combines strike, air-to-air, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and networking capabilities with a low-observable design.

Rather than replacing the A-10 with a single successor, the Air Force is therefore distributing elements of its former mission set across several aircraft and communities. The service insists its close air-support capability is not being reduced as the Warthog fleet retires, but at the very least the transition does represent a significant change in how that capability is generated and employed.

Regardless, the USAF’s claim that the impact of losing the heart of the A-10’s braintrust will not dramatically impact key mission sets in a negative manner has been viewed with extreme skepticism by some. It’s not uncommon for subject matter experts to believe the close air support and ‘Sandy’ aircrew recovery mission braintrust that the Warthog community represents is a far bigger loss than the aircraft itself, and that the USAF is not prepared to preserve this critical expertise, regardless of the service’s stated intentions.

The end of A-10 operations at Nellis also put what may be the final nail in the A-10’s coffin, as reconstituting these operations would be very challenging and costly. All this points to the Warthog being on its final glide path to retirement, once and for all.

You can read all about this controversy in our past special feature linked here.

Beyond the redistribution of Nellis’s A-10 pilots, the transition is also affecting the maintainers who supported the base’s A-10 fleet. Airmen assigned to the 757th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron’s Thunder Aircraft Maintenance Unit are being reassigned to other squadrons and airframes, including the F-35 and F-16. The Air Force is consequently moving not only personnel, but also decades of experience maintaining an aging and structurally demanding aircraft into programs supporting newer fighters.

For Staff Sgt. Eva Kehn, a weapons load crew chief with the 757th AMXS, the end of the A-10 era has an especially personal dimension because of her family’s connection to the aircraft and to aviation.

“Working on the A-10 is meaningful to me because that is something that I share with my grandfather,” Kehn said. “I’m very excited to have that new chapter and bond over that again with my grandfather.”

Kehn is transferring to an F-35 unit at Nellis, where that connection will continue in a different form. Her grandfather is now a civilian F-35 instructor, giving the two an opportunity to remain professionally connected even as the A-10 disappears from the installation.

Master Sgt. Aaron Edmonds, an aircraft section chief with the 757th AMXS, is also moving on from the Warthog after spending the past five years maintaining the aircraft. Edmonds previously worked on the F-16 earlier in his career and will now return to the Viper community.

“It’s a bittersweet moment,” Edmonds said. “I enjoyed my time with the A-10, but I’m excited because this departure marks the closing of one chapter and the start of another.”

Edmonds said the experience gained on the A-10 should be carried into the next aircraft rather than left behind with the airframe. “The advice I would give airmen who are transitioning from one airframe to another is to be open-minded, willing to learn and carry on the great work ethic from your previous aircraft over to your new one,” he said.

With the A-10 no longer present at Nellis, at least some of the expertise attached to it is being incorporated into a fighter force in which other aircraft types can contribute to the close air support mission in very different ways. An F-35, for example, can use its sensors and networking capabilities to identify and share information about targets and the battlespace, and it can go where other fighters can’t. An F-15 can contribute heavier weapons and longer endurance, among other capabilities, depending on the mission. This is not exactly new, either, as all types of aircraft provided CAS during the Global War on Terror-era, although the masters of exactly how to do it and how to execute the critical airborne forward air control (FAC-A) mission existed in the A-10 community. Still, the resulting force will be considerably different from the one centered on the Warthog, even where the underlying requirement to support troops on the ground remains.

As noted, the A-10’s retirement now looks to be gathering pace, despite repeated efforts to keep the A-10 in service and recent employment in combat operations in the Middle East. The Pentagon has granted three Warthog squadrons a reprieve to continue operating through 2030. In July, a bipartisan group of Congressmen introduced a bill that, if passed and signed into law, would require the Air Force to keep flying the jets through Fiscal Year 2033. Still, the aircraft’s eventual fate appears increasingly clear, with growing numbers heading to the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) boneyard in Arizona for storage, including the last one from Nellis.

The ongoing retirement of the A-10 is bringing a fundamental change in how the Air Force organizes and executes the missions for which the Warthog became synonymous. Nellis will remain an important center for developing those capabilities, even though the aircraft around which that expertise was built is no longer part of the equation.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

The post The A-10 Era Is Over At Nellis AFB appeared first on TWZ.

NEW YORK: Oil prices climbed in early trading Wednesday, building on the previous session’s sharp gains, as overnight military exchanges between the United States and Iran escalated tensions in the Middle East and revived fears of supply disruptions through a critical global shipping chokepoint. Brent crude futures rose $1.03, or 1.1%, to $95.68 a barrel ... Read more

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Leah Stewart, a 34-year-old mother of one, was dragged underwater by a shark at Coogee Beach on the morning of June 13 as it plunged its teeth into her arms and thigh.

Manchester, East Midlands and London Stansted airports, all owned by Manchester Airports Group, were targeted.

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More than a decade ago, a group of snipers shot up an electrical substation in Silicon Valley, striking power transformers and disabling the substation for nearly a month. The shooters were never identified; similar substation shootings, some by neo-Nazis, have taken place since. The longer Christopher Cox studies the American power grid—looking at aging infrastructure and ongoing transformer shortages, specialized manufacturing and rising demand, the massive energy consumption of data centers and whiplash usage of large language models—the more vulnerable it seems. “Somehow, we’ve made the industrial equivalent of a Fabergé egg the linchpin of our civilization,” Cox writes. “What would happen if someone started breaking them?”

The hope of restoring the grid would fade as fossil fuel supplies were exhausted, because so many utilities rely on them to “black-start” their generating units. A 2010 report called “High-Impact, Low-Frequency Event Risk to the North American Bulk Power System,” prepared by the Energy Department and NERC, condensed the entire disaster movie that would follow into a single paragraph: “The supply of food, water and fuel would degrade within days. The facile communication of information to the general population would be greatly complicated by the loss of cellphones, internet access and television. The economy would virtually shut down as electronic transactions could no longer be processed. After several days, widespread social unrest and confusion would ensue.” Thirsty, starved, dirty and surrounded by the useless machines we once depended on, we would be lucky if our misery ended at “confusion.”