The week in breach news Nov 4, 2026

A second wave of cyberattacks hit dozens of supermarkets across seven European countries, following last month’s attacks that primarily targeted French supermarkets.

Supermarkets across Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Finland were targeted in the latest refrigeration cyberattacks. Sabcobel, a Belgian manufacturer of some of the affected refrigerators, confirmed that the units’ evaporators were switched to defrost mode, causing them to warm up, a method believed to be consistent with last month’s attacks on French supermarkets. Security researchers have identified the root cause as internet-connected refrigerators manufactured by Danish company Danfoss, which is no longer providing security updates for the affected units.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, and it remains currently unclear who is behind them.

The FBI attributed the largest cryptocurrency heist on record to North Korean hackers after more than $6.3 billion was stolen from the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance.

On October 29, 2026, cybercriminals stole more than $6.3 billion in virtual assets from Binance. The company’s initial investigation suggested that a compromised laptop belonging to a DevOps engineer may have enabled unauthorized withdrawals, though additional breach points were subsequently identified, meaning the full attack path remains under investigation. Meanwhile, the FBI has linked the attack to TraderTraitor, a state-sponsored North Korean cybercrime and advanced persistent threat (APT) group with a known history of targeting the cryptocurrency sector.

The attack is the latest in a growing wave of cyberattacks targeting the cryptocurrency sector. A coordinated cyberattack targeting popular Bitcoin wallet COLDCARD reportedly resulted in estimated losses of more than $100 million in early August.

Cyberattacks continue to rock the U.S. educational sector, with the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) becoming the latest institution to confirm an attack that may have exposed the personal information of roughly 4.9 million people.

On October 29, FLDOE confirmed a cyberattack on its student financial aid website that was first identified on October 19. The attack compromised the Florida Student Financial Aid website, the online hub for Florida’s state-funded scholarship and grant programs. The department has warned that anyone who has ever applied for financial aid in the state could be among those affected. Data potentially accessed includes names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and gender codes.

The attack adds to a shocking wave of cyberattacks hitting the U.S. educational sector in recent weeks. Two East Coast school districts, the California Department of Education and edtech company Frontline Education have all come under attack in the same period.

A major supply chain breach sent shockwaves through the aviation sector, with multiple airlines across Asia reporting unauthorized access to customer data following a vulnerability in travel tech giant Amadeus.

Amadeus is a global travel tech company that runs the systems airlines use for reservations, ticketing and check-in. On October 1, the company disclosed a vulnerability in its travel booking display environment, stating that no ransomware actors had exploited it and that no payment or financial data was exposed. However, major Asian airlines including Japan Airlines, Korean Air, Asiana Airlines and Malaysia Airlines have since notified customers that their personal information may have been exposed because of the breach.

Japan Airlines confirmed approximately 92,000 customers of Japan Airlines and Japan Transocean Air were affected, while All Nippon Airways reported approximately 37,800 affected customers. Korean Air, Asiana Airlines and Malaysia Airlines have all reported potential exposure of customer data without disclosing specific figures.

In another major education sector breach this week, the University of Copenhagen in Denmark confirmed a cyberattack that exposed sensitive data belonging to more than half a million people.

The university said unnamed attackers gained access to one of its test environments, from which they extracted full names, national identity numbers (CPR), phone numbers and email addresses belonging to around 525,000 people. A subsequent update revealed that an additional 20,000 staff and students had their PIN codes exposed in the same incident.

The university’s IT team contained the attack and prevented further incursions, confirming there was no evidence of any other compromise or disruption to other systems.