Technology · Cybersecurity · 11 outlets (L 2 · C 4 · R 5)
Pentagon treats base freezer failures as suspected cyberattack
The Pentagon is treating late-August freezer malfunctions at U.S. military base commissaries as a suspected cyberattack, according to officials familiar with the matter.[1, 5, 7 +2] The malfunctions affected at least six commissaries, the on-base stores where military personnel buy their food.[1, 2, 4 +1] The Daily Beast, citing Reuters, reported that freezer temperatures were meddled with, and in one instance cranked up, melting and spoiling food.[2]
Task & Purpose reported that refrigeration failures spoiled food at commissaries across the country.[6] Bloomberg reported that U.S. military criminal investigators are examining the failures, which an Army official said followed similar outages in Europe caused by a cyberattack.[3] Breitbart reported that investigators are working with officials in France, where a cyberattack on supermarket freezers caused millions of dollars worth of damage.[7]
Why it matters Army criminal investigators are probing whether hackers caused the failures, which spoiled food troops buy at on-base commissaries.[3, 6, 8]
Covered by HuffPost, Bloomberg, Fox News and 8 more
Background Pentagon Cyber Command Freezer Probe Explained: What We Know and Don't Know
How balanced is this coverage?
Of the 11 rated outlets that covered it, 2 are left of center, 4 are center and 5 are right of center (4 of them in the Right group).
- Left: none.
- Leans left: HuffPost (−1.06), The Daily Beast (−0.64).
- Center: Newsweek (−0.30), Task & Purpose (−0.15), International Business Times (−0.14), Bloomberg (+0.08).
- Leans right: New York Post (+0.64).
- Right: The Washington Times (+1.27), Washington Examiner (+1.34), Fox News (+1.52), Breitbart (+2.03).
Each dot is an outlet that covered it, placed by its audience-lean score (Eady et al. 2025), which measures who shares its links, not how accurate it is. The ticks under the line are all 113 rated outlets Tare reads.