France accuses Iran of cyberattack against the refrigeration systems of hundreds of supermarkets

The French authorities have this Monday named Iran as allegedly responsible for a cyber attack that affected, during the night of October 11 to 12, the refrigeration systems of hundreds of supermarkets in France and caused tens of millions of euros in losses. The attacks were also reproduced in other European countries and later, although the relationship is not confirmed for now, they were repeated in blood storage centers for transfusions.

The French services, as explained by Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot himself, now attribute the operation to the ayatollah regime. Specifically, the attack would come from the cyber center of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, a military organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The J3 section of the Paris Prosecutor's Office, specialized in the fight against cybercrime, has begun investigations to clarify the facts and determine responsibilities, as reported by Le Figaro.

Dozens of supermarkets in at least seven European countries woke up a week ago with part of their merchandise spoiled. The cyberattack, whose origin was unknown at the time, raised the temperature of the cold rooms of several establishments, in some cases up to 50 degrees, spoiling fresh and frozen products. What is striking is that three weeks earlier it had happened in France, where the refrigeration infrastructures of some of the main French distribution chains, including Coopérative U, Intermarché, Monoprix, Carrefour and E.Leclerc.

Workers at the affected establishments discovered upon arriving at their jobs that numerous refrigeration equipment had been out of service. The manipulation of these systems compromised the conservation of fresh and frozen products, forcing part of the stock to be destroyed.

The president of Coopérative U, Dominique Schelcher, then described the incident as “unprecedented” and “extremely serious”, due to its scope and the consequences it could have on the functioning of food distribution.

The operation revealed the vulnerability of essential facilities for food supply, whose digitalization - also their interconnection - exposes them to possible computer attacks. This time it was food and blood. But the situation could be much worse. For example, disabling vaccine refrigeration systems in a pandemic context. The Pentagon, in fact, revealed that same week that it is investigating some failures recorded in August in the cold storage rooms of several US military bases as a cyber attack.

The attribution of the attack to a structure linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards opens a new line of investigation into the scope of cyber operations against European civilian infrastructure.

Judicial investigations must now specify the operation of the attack, its possible international ramifications and the degree of responsibility of the actors identified by the French services.