France Blames Iran for Cyberattack on Supermarkets

France has officially accused Iran's Revolutionary Guard of responsibility for a significant cyberattack that affected hundreds of supermarkets across the country last month, an incident dubbed the "hot refrigerator attack." French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot stated that the attack would have serious repercussions, including the promotion of European Union sanctions. Concurrently, Iran's ambassador to Paris was summoned for a stern reprimand at the Foreign Ministry.

The French prosecution in Paris has also requested international arrest warrants for the commander of the offensive cyber unit "Shahid Kaveh," identified with the Revolutionary Guard, and two of his deputies. The investigation revealed the use of Persian language and IP addresses originating from Iran. The severe attack occurred on the night of October 11-12. Iranian hackers remotely infiltrated temperature regulation software manufactured by the Danish company Danfoss, altering settings to heat refrigerators and freezers to 50 degrees Celsius.

The attack was precisely timed for nighttime hours. When employees arrived in the morning at over 700 branches of major chains, including Intermarché, Carrefour, Monoprix, and Leclerc, they discovered spoiled food, melted equipment, and in approximately 20 cases, fires. The estimated damage amounts to tens of millions of euros.

This destructive event in France is not an isolated incident but part of a broader economic cyber terror campaign by Tehran. Earlier in November, supermarket chains in five other European countries, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Estonia, and Ireland, reported similar cyber incidents that disabled freezers and led to the destruction of vast quantities of goods. The Iranian method was apparently tested earlier.

In late August, U.S. military bases, including commissaries serving personnel at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, experienced mysterious cooling malfunctions where freezers switched to defrost mode overnight. The Pentagon estimates Iran was behind this operation as well. The target of this coordinated attack was predictable: Danfoss, whose software was exploited by the hackers, had warned in September about a critical security vulnerability. The company admitted that similar attempts to breach supermarket refrigerators in Israel and Russia occurred in 2022, likely serving as a "trial run" for the current attacks.