Cyber attack on freezers – France blames Iranian Revolutionary Guards

France sees Iran behind recent cyber attacks on refrigeration systems of French supermarket chains. Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the Iranian ambassador to France had been summoned “to protest very vigorously against this extremely serious act.”

Thanks to the efforts of the state authorities, he was able to confirm “that responsibility for this attack lies with the Revolutionary Guards of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” It is an attack of unprecedented scale and unprecedented aggressiveness.

“This is the first large-scale cyberattack for sabotage purposes on French territory and represents a serious breach of the interests of the nation and the security of the French people,” Barrot said.

Therefore he will not remain without consequences. “We will impose sanctions at European level against all those responsible for this attack and will take all other appropriate and necessary measures – whether public or non-public – to respond to this attack and deter those who would like to repeat it.”

The German security authorities have not yet determined who is behind the attacks on supermarkets in this country. Security circles only said that the cases were being processed in the Joint Defense Center Hybrid, a platform for the federal and state governments to exchange information on hybrid threats.

Brussels said in the evening that the European Commission was in direct contact with the responsible national authorities. There was exchange and coordination in the responsible committees, including the network of member state authorities responsible for cyber crises, said a spokesman for the authority. The latter was important because several countries were affected. The network supports coordination and information exchange.

As Barrot said, around 700 supermarkets in France were affected by the cyber attacks on the night of October 11th to 12th. A lot of goods were damaged and there were fires.

The Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced the opening of an investigation aimed in particular at the head of the Iranian group, Shahid Kaveh - a cyberattack unit attached to the Electronics and Cyber ​​Center of the Revolutionary Guards - and his two deputies. The public prosecutor's office has requested that international arrest warrants be issued against them.

She also cited evidence for the allegations: the French investigation had brought to light an approach characteristic of Iran's cyberattack unit, the prosecutor said. This involves the use of the Persian language Farsi and IP addresses that refer to devices in Iran.

In addition to France, other European countries have been hit by cyber attacks on refrigeration and freezing systems in supermarkets and food establishments since mid-October, including Germany. In North Rhine-Westphalia it hit a supermarket in the Ennepe-Ruhr district and the media reported on other supermarkets in Wuppertal and Münsterland. Attackers remotely caused the temperature in refrigerators and freezers to rise, causing goods to spoil.

At the beginning of November, the French blood bank was the target of such an attack. According to US media, several incidents are also being investigated in the United States. The EU Commission called a crisis meeting. The French minister did not say whether Iran could be behind all the attacks outside France. There has so far been no concrete evidence of other authors.