ColdWatch exposure census
Standing lower-bound census · snapshot 2026-11-05

Refrigeration controllers answering the open internet.

A passive, aggregate census of cold-chain and building controllers — Danfoss, Dixell, Carel and RDM — that respond on a public IP address across sixteen European national markets. It counts reachable devices. It does not test, touch or log in to any of them.

At least 4,853
▲ lower bound

distinct public IP addresses running a refrigeration or cold-chain controller that is potentially exposed to the open internet.

16
National markets
18,664
Matched records
4
Controller makers
28
Country × maker cells
3,077 4,853 +1,776 hosts 3 Nov 2026 5 Nov 2026 7 markets 16 markets
+57.7% more distinct hosts between the two surveyed snapshots, as coverage widened from 7 national markets to 16. The line climbs because the survey got wider, not because exposure appeared overnight.
Where the exposure sits

Exposure by national market

Each country is shaded by the number of exposed hosts the census found there, and ringed by a marker sized on the same scale. Click a country to pin its figures.

Denmark — 67 exposed hosts Ireland — 55 exposed hosts Austria — 72 exposed hosts Finland — 44 exposed hosts France — 1,691 exposed hosts Germany — 253 exposed hosts Italy — 688 exposed hosts Belgium — 456 exposed hosts Netherlands — 314 exposed hosts Norway — 25 exposed hosts Poland — 262 exposed hosts Portugal — 118 exposed hosts Spain — 332 exposed hosts Sweden — 131 exposed hosts Switzerland — 43 exposed hosts United Kingdom — 302 exposed hosts France — 1,691 exposed hosts Italy — 688 exposed hosts Belgium — 456 exposed hosts Spain — 332 exposed hosts Netherlands — 314 exposed hosts United Kingdom — 302 exposed hosts Poland — 262 exposed hosts Germany — 253 exposed hosts Sweden — 131 exposed hosts Portugal — 118 exposed hosts Austria — 72 exposed hosts Denmark — 67 exposed hosts Ireland — 55 exposed hosts Finland — 44 exposed hosts Switzerland — 43 exposed hosts Norway — 25 exposed hosts
Hosts per market 251,691
Marker scale
All 16 national marketscensus total
Exposed hosts4,853 Markets surveyed16 Largest market1,691
France alone accounts for 1,691 of these hosts, roughly a third of every controller counted. Pick a country for its own figures.
Click a country or a row to pin it↑↓ step through marketsEsc clear
Ranked by exposed hosts
FRFrance1,69134.8%
ITItaly68814.2%
BEBelgium4569.4%
ESSpain3326.8%
NLNetherlands3146.5%
GBUnited Kingdom3026.2%
PLPoland2625.4%
DEGermany2535.2%
SESweden1312.7%
PTPortugal1182.4%
ATAustria721.5%
DKDenmark671.4%
IEIreland551.1%
FIFinland440.9%
CHSwitzerland430.9%
NONorway250.5%
Shares of 4,853 hosts All 16 markets · 4,853
Public reporting on these controllers
Sources checked 11 November 2026

17 advisories, research papers and press reports, 2016 to 2026. Ten of them land in the last five weeks. Pick one to see the maker and the market it touches.

22 Dec 2016AdvisoryCISA

Resource Data Management Intuitive 650 TDB Controller Vulnerabilities (Update A)

RDM Intuitive 650 TDB Controller v2.1 and earlier: privilege escalation (CVE-2016-4505) and cross-site request forgery (CVE-2016-4506). Fixed in v2.1.24.

RDMCVE-2016-4505Read it at CISA
8 Feb 2019PressSecurityWeek

Refrigeration Systems Used by Supermarkets, Hospitals Left Exposed Online

Thousands of internet-exposed Resource Data Management temperature controllers reachable with default credentials (Shodan-based exposure research).

3 Jun 2019AdvisoryCybersecurity Help

Multiple vulnerabilities in Carel pCOWeb

Carel pCOWeb before B1.2.4: plaintext credential storage (CVE-2019-11369) and stored cross-site scripting (CVE-2019-11370).

31 Aug 2022AdvisoryGitHub Advisory Database

Carel pCOWeb HVAC BACnet Gateway — unauthenticated path traversal

Unauthenticated directory traversal in logdownload.cgi on Carel pCOWeb HVAC BACnet Gateway (firmware A2.1.0 to B2.1.0). CVSS 7.5.

20 May 2025AdvisoryCISA

Danfoss AK-SM 8xxA Series (Update A)

Original release 2025-05-20; Update A on 2025-08-26 added the command-injection and denial-of-service CVEs. Fixes in R4.2 and R4.3.1.

DanfossCVE-2025-41450Read it at CISA
26 Feb 2026AdvisoryCISA

Copeland XWEB and XWEB Pro

Copeland/Dixell XWEB 300D/500B/500D PRO, v1.12.1 and earlier. 23 CVEs; the critical one is an unauthenticated OS command-injection path to remote code execution (CVE-2026-24663).

DixellCVE-2026-24663Read it at CISA
9 Aug 2026ResearchClaroty Team82

Freeze the Controller, Defrost the Food: Uncovering Vulnerabilities in Danfoss Refrigeration Controllers

Three Danfoss AK-SM 800A issues: authentication bypass (CVE-2025-41450), command injection (CVE-2025-41451) and denial of service (CVE-2025-41452). Fixed in firmware R4.3.1.

DanfossCVE-2025-41450Read it at Claroty Team82
12 Oct 2026AdvisoryCERT-FR

Incident de sécurité ciblant les contrôleurs à distance des installations de réfrigération

CERT-FR alert on compromises of internet-exposed refrigeration controllers (Danfoss AK-SM/AK-SC, Copeland and Dixell XWEB). Advises removing internet exposure and restricting to VPN.

12 Oct 2026ResearchUK Cyber Defence

UK exposure: 800+ internet-facing refrigeration & building controllers

More than 800 UK internet-exposed refrigeration and building-management controllers counted, including Danfoss, Carel and Copeland systems.

13 Oct 2026PressLe Monde

After Danfoss, hackers strike other refrigeration systems used in France

Attacks on Dixell-equipped stores near Bordeaux and in Tarn, with defrost and temperature settings changed remotely.

14 Oct 2026AdvisoryCopeland Controls

Avis de sécurité relatif aux systèmes de supervision XWEB

Copeland told operators to take XWEB EVO units off the public internet, check them for unauthorised access and plan migration to XWEB PRO.

15 Oct 2026PressThe Register

Researchers warned attackers could 'defrost the food' months before French supermarkets got hit

Refrigeration-control sabotage across roughly 700 French supermarket sites, tied to the Danfoss and Copeland controller families covered by earlier disclosures.

22 Oct 2026ResearchONYPHE

Refrigeration as Critical Infrastructure: Beyond Danfoss, the Exposure of Copeland/Dixell Supervisory Systems

1,960 XWEB EVO, 108 XWEB PRO and 589 Copeland Site Supervisor public IPs counted; Italy led both XWEB EVO and XWEB PRO exposure.

2 Nov 2026AdvisorySwedish NCSC

Cyberangrepp mot uppkopplade frys- och kylsystem

Sweden's NCSC said it was tracking incidents affecting retail refrigeration systems, and told operators to inventory and protect internet-connected OT.

3 Nov 2026PressRecorded Future News

British businesses caught in Europe-wide supermarket fridge attacks

Three British meat suppliers and a produce wholesaler were reached through Copeland XWEB controllers; operators intervened before stock was lost.

4 Nov 2026AdvisoryENISA

Joint statement on cyber incidents in refrigeration systems across the EU

Refrigeration systems in several EU member states affected from 11 October, with a further wave of incidents on 1-2 November.

5 Nov 2026ResearchCensys

European Refrigeration Controller Exposure: A Second Attack Wave

Exposed Danfoss StoreView and Copeland/Dixell XWEB hosts fell 53%, from 6,695 on 9 October to 3,124 on 5 November.

How to read the map. Every figure is aggregated to a national market. A marker is not a pin on any individual host — it is the country total, drawn near the centre so the eye can find it. No addresses, hostnames, operators, certificate names or banners appear on this site. Countries with no marker are not yet surveyed.

What the count is made of

The four controller families behind the count

Shares of the 4,853 distinct hosts. The four figures add up to more than the headline because a single host can answer with more than one maker's fingerprint.

Danfoss2,851
AK-SM 800A / AK-SC site managers58.7% of hosts
Public advisories: CISA ICSA-25-140-03 · Claroty Team82, Aug 2026
Dixell1,495
XWEB 300D–500D PRO / Copeland controllers30.8% of hosts
Public advisories: CISA ICSA-26-057-10 · CVE-2026-24663
Carel288
pCOWeb HVAC BACnet gateways5.9% of hosts
Public advisories: GHSA-wwr2-w2jp-vx63 · CVE-2022-37122
RDM228
Resource Data Management Intuitive controllers4.7% of hosts
Public advisories: CISA ICSA-16-140-01A · CVE-2016-4505
How the number is built

From raw matches to distinct hosts

18,664
Matched records

Passive fingerprint matches across 28 country × maker cells. The raw haystack, before any de-duplication.

13,811
Overlapping records removed

The same host counted more than once — a second port, a second maker fingerprint, a repeat survey. Collapsed to one host.

4,853
Distinct public IP addresses

What remains after de-duplication: the unique hosts behind the headline.

16
National markets surveyed

Sixteen European countries are covered. The rest of the continent is not yet surveyed — unmeasured, not clear.

20 / 28
Retrieval-limited cells

In 20 of the 28 cells the query hit a result ceiling, so the true count is higher than shown.

0
Host details published

Aggregate country and maker totals only. Per-host data is held privately so it can reach the national CERTs and the makers who can act on it.

Why the real number is higher

Three things push the real number above 4,853. Coverage stops at sixteen national markets, so every unsurveyed country adds hosts this census never saw. In most cells the data source capped how many results it would return, truncating the count before it finished. And passive fingerprinting only recognises devices that answer in a way we already have a signature for — anything behind a reverse proxy, on a non-standard port, or newly modelled slips past.

Widening coverage from seven markets to sixteen raised the count 57.7% in two days. The number tracks how far we have looked, not how much is out there.

Primary incident & remediation sources

Where this matters, and where to fix it