The clearest sign yet that I am getting old is that two friends, in the space of a month, have texted me excitedly about their washing machines. Specifically, that each now has an app from which they can “watch” their laundry’s progress.

What utility this serves is not entirely clear to me. But what is becoming far more obvious is that the “internet of everything” – in which our cookers, fridges, cars and doorbells were connected to, and controlled from, servers in far-flung places – was never a good idea. I first had an inkling of this years ago, when a friend who worked in nuclear non-proliferation for the government got rid of his smartphone and moved to cash banking after being hacked a few too many times.

And this week we are beginning to understand what happens when the everything-is-connected model releases its sequel: everything-is-hackable.

On Monday morning, the Musgrave group, which owns Supervalu, announced that a “cyber incident” had hit the refrigeration systems in 13 of its Irish shops. As a result, fridge and freezer temperatures rose, meaning all chilled and frozen stock had to be removed in case it spoiled. It also impacted fridges in Belgian branches of Carrefour, Intermarché and Ikea; the Coop and ICA chains in Sweden; the Delhaize group in Luxembourg; Kesko in Finland and some shops in Estonia.

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The head of the Belgian firm that runs Delhaize’s cooling systems stated that somebody got in remotely and switched the evaporators to defrost. This happened only three weeks after similar issues in France, where hackers seized the cold-chain........

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