France Blames Iran for Cyber Attack on Supermarket Refrigerators

French officials have blamed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for a massive cyber attack that knocked out commercial refrigerators and freezers across the country last month.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot stated that the Iranian ambassador had been summoned to the foreign ministry in Paris to lodge a very strong protest.

This is an attack of unprecedented scale and aggressiveness, Mr Barrot said, adding that it was the first large-scale cyber attack aimed at sabotage on French soil.

The security breach began on 11 October, when hackers overrode digital thermostats and remote software provided by Danish engineering firm Danfoss. The intrusion pushed internal temperatures in some units up to 50 degrees Celsius, spoiling tons of meat and melted ice cream across hundreds of locations.

Roughly 700 of France’s 10,000 supermarkets were affected during the initial wave. Major food retailers including Carrefour, E.Leclerc, Intermarché, Monoprix, and Coopérative U reported widespread stock losses.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced that a formal judicial investigation opened on Monday into suspected organized cybercrime. The probe targets the leader of Shahid Kaveh, an offensive cyber unit affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, along with two deputies.

Investigators traced the operation using Farsi and IP addresses linked to devices located inside Iran, Ms Beccuau said. The Paris prosecutor’s office is seeking international arrest warrants for the suspects.

Gérôme Billois, a partner at the cybersecurity firm Wavestone, noted that Shahid Kaveh had been active since 2020 and previously targeted water distribution systems in the United States.

A second wave of digital intrusions struck supermarkets in Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, Estonia, the Netherlands, and Finland on 2 November.

Separate attempts also targeted French blood banks last week, though technicians disconnected cold storage units before blood products could be destroyed.

It remains unclear whether the multi-country incidents are directly linked to the initial French supermarket sabotage.

Mr Barrot warned that the actions would not go unanswered and threatened European Union sanctions against Tehran. The French government vowed to take any further necessary measures to deter repeat attacks.