France has accused Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of carrying out cyberattacks that raised the temperatures of supermarket fridges and freezers across the country, in what the government called an unprecedented campaign.
Speaking at a news conference, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the attack was carried out by the IRGC and was “unprecedented in both its scale and its level of aggression”, the BBC reported. He said France would “implement sanctions at the European level against all those responsible for this attack”. Iran had not responded to the allegation at the time of writing.
What happened
On 11 October, hackers gained control of the software that regulates the temperature of refrigeration units used in many French supermarkets. More than 100 stores of the Coopérative U chain were affected, along with about 180 Intermarché and Netto stores. In some shops, fridge temperatures reportedly climbed to 50°C overnight, spoiling fresh and frozen food estimated to be worth millions of euros. Last week, dozens of supermarkets in seven other European countries were hit by a cyberattack targeting fridges and freezers; it is not known whether the incidents are linked.
Also on Monday, the Paris prosecutor said an investigation had been opened into the head of an offensive cyber unit associated with the IRGC, named as Shahid Kaveh, and his two deputies, Al Jazeera reported.
A widening pattern of infrastructure attacks
Targeting commercial refrigeration is unusual: it does not shut down power grids or hospitals, but it damages businesses, wastes food and demonstrates reach into connected industrial systems. The attack also points to a broader shift in which states and state-linked groups use cyber operations for disruption rather than espionage.
Attributing an attack publicly is a political act as much as a technical one. France’s decision to name the IRGC and seek EU-wide sanctions puts the issue on the agenda of European governments already debating how to respond to Iran. Tehran has previously denied involvement in cyber operations against Western targets, and no independent forensic report has been published by Paris.
The Daily Lens has not been able to verify the technical details of the intrusion, or Iran’s role in it, beyond the French government’s public statements. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to the allegation.
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