Iran's Revolutionary Guards behind cyberattacks on supermarket fridges, says French FM

France's foreign minister has accused Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps of being involved in "unprecedented" cyberattacks targeting supermarket fridges last month, vowing to hit Tehran with sanctions in response.

Swathes of French supermarkets were hit in the October 11 and 12 cyberattacks, which raised the temperatures in their refrigerators, in some cases forcing them to throw away entire inventories of perishable food.

"I can confirm that this attack was carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of the Islamic Republic of Iran," Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said of the cyberattacks.

"This attack is unprecedented in both its scale and its level of aggression," he said.

"It marks the first large-scale cyberattack aimed at sabotage on our national territory, and it constitutes a major attack on the nation's interests and the security of the French people," said Barrot.

"We will implement sanctions at the European level against all those responsible," he added.

Other countries hit

Barrot only directly referenced attacks against French supermarket systems, which he said targeted 700 sites.

However, similar incidents have been reported in other European countries.

On November 2, grocery stores across at least nine other European countries were hit by a suspected cyberattack on their freezer systems.

The Paris prosecutor said she had opened an investigation into an Iranian cyber unit affiliated with the IRGC, the Islamic republic's ideological army which also branched out into cyberwarfare, over the attacks.

"A judicial investigation has been opened against the head of the Iranian group Shahid Kaveh, an offensive cyber unit affiliated with the Electronic and Cyber Centre of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC-CEC), against his two deputies, and against any other individuals who may be identified," Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.

Barrot said France had summoned the Iranian ambassador to Paris "to lodge a very strong protest against this extremely grave act".

"We will take any other necessary and proportionate measures – whether public or otherwise – to respond to this incident and deter anyone who might seek to repeat it," he added.

Speaking after Barrot, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said "our response should be strong", adding she had just learned of the attribution of the attack to Iran.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, Reuters)