Mysterious freezer failures at US military bases trigger federal investigation

The Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division is investigating mysterious freezer and refrigerator malfunctions that spoiled food at military bases across the U.S. amid concerns the outages may have been caused by a cyberattack.

Army CID’s Cyber Field Office is working with the Defense Commissary Agency and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service to determine what caused the refrigeration failures at military commissaries in August, an Army CID spokesperson confirmed to Fox News.

Investigators are also working with French law enforcement to understand a series of refrigeration outages in Europe as authorities examine whether the incidents could be connected.

Mysterious refrigeration problems spoiled food at military bases across the U.S. in late August.   (Fort Irwin)

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The story was first reported by Reuters. 

In late August, at least six commissaries, on-base stores where military personnel buy food, suddenly experienced refrigeration malfunctions.

Fort Huachuca in Arizona said in an Aug. 26 Facebook post that its refrigeration units "went into defrost mode" overnight.

"ALL freezers went into defrost mode – ALL frozen food has spoiled," the base said.

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Fort Irwin’s commissary limited sales to dry goods following the malfunction. (Fort Irwin)

Other affected facilities include F. E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, Naval Station Newport in Rhode Island, Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi, Travis Air Force Base Commissary in California and Fort Irwin in California.

In at least one case, refrigeration units were set to higher temperatures overnight rather than simply turning off, Reuters reported. 

U.S. Army Fort Huachuca in August said an outage has effected the base's commisaries.  (U.S. Army Fort Huachuca  )

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Several weeks ago, a cyberattack targeted hundreds of French supermarkets, with hackers manipulating refrigerators to reach temperatures of 122 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature spike spoiled large quantities of food and sparked fires across Europe.

A woman walks past empty fresh-food refrigerators at an Intermarché supermarket in Névez, western France, Oct. 12, 2026, after a cyberattack affecting the French supermarket chains Intermarché and Cooperative U that caused their refrigerators to defrost. (Fred Tanneau/AFP via Getty Images)

The Paris prosecutor's office confirmed the cyberattack, describing it as a "large-scale" assault that affected several major food retailers across the country. 

Fox News Digital's Robert McGreevy contributed to this report.

Bonny Chu is a Breaking and Trending News Writer for Fox News Digital