France blames Iranian Revolutionary Guards for cyberattack that crippled supermarket refrigeration equipment

Abstract:

France has publicly blamed Iran for a series of recent cyber attacks. The attacks disabled refrigeration equipment in hundreds of supermarkets across France, causing chaos. "Responsibility for this attack lies with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said in Paris on Monday. It is rare for France to directly blame foreign powers for cyberattacks.

Barrot said on the sidelines of the G7 informal ministerial meeting that he would seek to take retaliatory measures against Iran and had summoned the Iranian ambassador to France in this regard.

“This is the first time that French soil has suffered a large-scale cyber attack with the purpose of causing damage,” Barrot said. "This harms national interests and the security of French citizens. We will impose sanctions at European level on all parties responsible" and will "take any other appropriate and necessary measures to respond to this attack and deter those who seek to follow suit."

Representatives of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Paris prosecutors said in a statement on Monday that they had asked an investigating judge with broader investigative powers to move forward with the case, which was launched last month. Prosecutors are also seeking arrest warrants for the head of an Iranian cyber unit linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and two of his deputies.

Prosecutors said investigators found that the attack used tactics that were characteristic of the cyberattack force, including the use of Farsi language and the use of IP addresses associated with devices located in Iran.

The cyber attack affected approximately 700 supermarkets in France. The hackers carried out the attack through centralized refrigeration controllers that are connected to the internet, devices that allow contractors to monitor temperatures remotely. Attackers compromised some systems and tampered with settings, triggering long defrost cycles that increased refrigerator and freezer temperatures.