Auchan

I'm Andy Thompson, and here are three late-breaking cybersecurity stories that I think you need to know about.

So it turns out that the attacker actually broke into the third-party monitoring system platform that was used by chains like Auchan, Carrefour, and Intermarch.

Uh, yeah, it was managing their refrigeration systems remotely.

Uh, once this one supplier got popped, suddenly meat and dairy and produce across hundreds of locations are sitting at a nice and balmy eighty-eight degrees.

That's a very deliberate framing.

Meanwhile, major chains like Monoprix, A. Leclerc, and Auchan didn't respond to requests for comment.

Well, silence from major competitors in the wake of an industry-wide breach often points to aggressive internal auditing.

They're likely tearing their own networks apart to see if the same malicious code is dormant in their refrigeration controllers.

And then the next lowest is like high quality corporates, which are probably these 38%.

These are like- You know, well-known corporates, Auchan, you know, Carrefour, like big things that Renault, whatever, right? Big corporates that everybody knows.

Whoever makes the baguettes in France, I don't know, it's, it's clearly some single company, right? Um, whatever, like the thing, the France thing, right? Um, and so, uh, yeah, they're not like terribly rated, but they're supposed to be rated off the back of the government because the government is supposed to be the most credible creditor, right? And so now nearly 40% of French corporates are more trustworthy to lend money to than the French government.

That's nuts, man.

This is a fascinating concept.

I've worked for over 10 years in the wine industry and exporting wine to China, and I've dealt with Chinese Communist Party-owned supermarket chains like Vanguard and Yongwei and Womart, and I've dealt with Chinese-based supermarket chains that are French like Auchan or Eon, which is Japanese, or RT Mart, which is Taiwanese, strangely, in mainland China.

And they're just chalk and cheese.

If you deal with the Communist Party ones, they're backwards.

Metro AG first entered the Russian market in 2001, operated 91 wholesale stores, employing around 9,000 people in the country.

And it's gone the way of Nestle and Auchan.

So, OK, September 28th, Moscow's audacious asset grab is a warning to Western companies.

So here, Charles Hecker says the Kremlin said that Western companies choosing to stay in Russia made the right decision and were good corporate citizens.

And it's actually funny is they wasted no time.

We saw they went after Nestle, they went after Auchan.

Uh, now they've gone after other companies, including Metro, the Cash and Carry, which is a UK brand.

They've gone after them.

And the first company I've created was a B2B SaaS company for large retailer, and we were doing like analytics, pitfall analytics for large retailers.

And after doing this for, for a few years with some of the biggest retailers in the world, like Auchan, Carrefour in France, Galeries Lafayette, these kind of, of big stores, I realized two things.

The first one is like, I'm not very happy doing this kind of job because, uh, actually, uh, I didn't feel like I'm putting my value into something meaningful for me and for others.

And the second one is like, I really want to solve a real issue for the common people.

And they only noticed it this year.

Now, since we're discussing what Russia does with other people's property, let's do a quick inventory, okay? Nine days ago, a presidential decree handed the Russian operators of Auchan, Leroy Merlin, and Nestle to the temporary management.

Now, of a company, you know, capitalized at 50,000 rubles, $150, one employee.

Last year, it lost money, and its director is a retired interior ministry general who was appointed to the post for a week before the decree had made him rich.

Who has had a bad week, Katie?

I am going to give my bad week to a couple of extremely well-known European companies, Nestlé and Auchan.

Nestlé, of course, being the makers of Kit Kats, Smarties, Nesquik, and a bunch of other delicious processed foods.

They haven't paid me to say that.

They also make Nespresso coffee capsules.

That is Nestlé, which is based in Switzerland.

The other company having a bad week is Auchan, the giant French supermarket chain.

Auchan have shops in about a dozen countries, most of them in Europe.