France blames Iran's Revolutionary Guards for cyberattack on refrigeration at 700 commercial sites

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Monday that Iran's Revolutionary Guards were responsible for the October cyberattacks on the refrigeration systems of French supermarkets, according to Reuters. Barrot said the Iranian ambassador had been summoned and announced sanctions at European level against those responsible.

The Paris prosecutor's office has opened a judicial investigation into the head of the Shahid Kaveh group, which it describes as a cyber offensive unit linked to the Revolutionary Guards, and his two deputies, and is seeking international arrest warrants, according to its statement as reported by Actu17 and Al Jazeera. The prosecutor's office cites as its basis an attack method characteristic of that unit, the use of Farsi and IP addresses pointing to devices located in Iran. A joint report by French intelligence and cybersecurity services adds, according to Reuters, a link to the digital infrastructure used in the attacks.

The attack, on the night of October 11 to 12, hit about 700 sites in France, according to the prosecutor's office. The attackers remotely took over Danfoss and Dixell controllers and launched abnormal defrost cycles, with temperature alerts disabled, according to the statement cited by Actu17. Authorities say temperatures reached 50 degrees, according to Al Jazeera. The fire figures differ: the prosecutor's office speaks of around twenty outbreaks and the report cited by Reuters of at least 15.

Iran's mission to the UN did not respond to Reuters, which notes that the country routinely denies this kind of operation. The sources consulted refer to the October attacks in France and do not expressly attribute to Iran the second series of attacks recorded in November in other European countries.