From the refrigerator to tap water and electricity: cyberattacks already affect everyday life

Recent cyberattacks have disrupted supermarket refrigeration in 12 countries, taken websites offline and exposed sensitive government and personal data. Their effects show that attacks can reach beyond computers and threaten everyday services and physical infrastructure, a trend analysts say could become more common.

Artificial intelligence is helping both defenders and attackers find software weaknesses, write code and scale operations. The average time from a flaw’s disclosure to an attack exploiting it shifted from 63 days in 2018 to attacks occurring a week before disclosure in 2025. Experts warn that faster, cheaper attacks could put more targets at risk, especially as digital systems increasingly control physical devices.