Iran was behind cyber-attack on French supermarket freezers, Paris says

France has said Iran was responsible for a massive cyber-attack on supermarket freezers and chiller cabinets that was described by its foreign minister as being an act of “unprecedented scale and unprecedented aggression”.

Jean-Noël Barrot said “Europe-wide sanctions” would be imposed against those responsible, adding that the attacks – which took control of digital thermostats to push temperatures up to above 50C – constituted “a major violation of the nation’s interests”.

At a press briefing during the G7 summit in Paris, he said: “Thanks to the remarkable efforts of government agencies, I am able to confirm that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are responsible for this attack.”

He said the Iranian ambassador had been summoned “to protest in the strongest possible terms against this extremely serious act.”

Swathes of French supermarkets were hit in the cyber-attacks on 11 and 12 October. Some were forced to throw away entire inventories of perishable food.

Similar incidents have been reported since, including on supermarket fridges in other European countries last week and on a French blood bank.

The Paris public prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, said on Monday that specialist investigators and government agencies had identified “a modus operandi” characteristic of the Iranian group Shahid Kaveh, a cyber warfare unit linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

This included “the use of Farsi and IP addresses traced back to devices located in Iran”, she said.

Beccuau said her office had opened a investigation against the head of Shahid Kaveh, his deputies and “others who will be identified” on charges of “fraudulent attacks on an automated data processing system committed as part of an organised crime ring and of causing damage dangerous to persons”.

She said the offences were “aggravated by the fact they were committed to serve a foreign power – in this case Iran”.

Gérôme Billois, a partner at the cybersecurity and technology company Wavestone, said Shahid Kaveh had been active since 2020 and was known to have carried out cyber-attacks mostly on water distribution systems in the US.

“Two countries are known for this kind of attack: Iran and Russia. Given that recent cyber-attacks on supermarkets and the blood bank in France concerned freezers it is reasonable to think Iran is directly linked to both,” he said.