Iran on Tuesday dismissed French accusations that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was behind a cyberattack on hundreds of supermarkets last month, as Paris summoned Tehran’s ambassador to discuss the incident.
“Iran’s Foreign Ministry categorically rejects the French government’s baseless and one-sided accusations against Iran regarding alleged cyber activities in France,” the ministry said, adding that it “strongly condemns this hackneyed policy of leveling accusations against the Islamic Republic.”
The alleged attack, which began overnight on October 11-12, raised the temperatures in supermarket refrigerators and freezer units, spoiling produce and even causing fires in isolated instances.
A series of similar incidents have since followed in Europe and beyond, even including a failed attack on cooling units at French blood banks this month, though it is not yet clear if these subsequent events are connected.
France summons ambassador, says it rules ‘nothing’ out in response
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Tuesday that his government would “rule nothing out and will take all measures — including those we may not disclose publicly — that we deem proportionate and necessary to deter any further attacks.”
Barrot was speaking amid a G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Paris that included discussions with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the conflict with Iran.
Barrot even said that despite a change in tone from the Trump administration since the midterm election defeat in the US, the risk of a renewed escalation with Iran could not be ruled out, “otherwise, we would not have devoted so much time and energy over the past two days to addressing these issues with our American counterpart.”
France summoned the Iranian ambassador on Tuesday and said it would be seeking European-level sanctions in response.
The EU said it would seek to provide a “swift and united response” pending discussion with member states.
“As the EU, we have consistently called on all states to refrain from malicious behavior in the cyberspace, and we will continue to address such malicious behavior, making use of all the tools that we have, also under the EU cyber diplomacy toolbox, including sanctions,” spokesman Anouar El Anouni said.
Barrot said that the goal of any response would be “to deter anyone who might be tempted, in Iran or elsewhere, to do it again.”
Iran accuses French of ‘projecting’ its own failures
Tehran appeared to threaten retaliatory measures of its own if sanctions materialized, saying it would “not hesitate to take necessary and appropriate measures to safeguard its national interests and security in the face of unlawful foreign activities.”
It accused France of “merely projecting its own governance failures” with its allegations.
“A government that cannot even manage the temperature of its own refrigerators now seeks to shift the blame onto foreign actors through these preposterous accusations,” it said.
What did Paris prosecutors say about suspected Iranian involvement?
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said on Monday that she had opened an investigation into leading members of Shahid Kaveh, a cyber unit that is part of Iran’s multi-force specialist military, the IRGC, that answers directly to its religious leadership.
She said her office had requested arrest warrants against two Shahid Kaveh officials and was investigating others.
She described the entity as “an offensive cyber unit affiliated with the Electronic and Cyber Center of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
French cyber intelligence agencies said the unit conducted “large-scale campaigns targeting industrial equipment for the purpose of sabotage.” It said it primarily targeted Israel and the US, but also France and other European countries.
Beccuau said that the attack targeted roughly 700 of France’s roughly 10,000 supermarkets. It used web interfaces to “initiate abnormal, indefinite defrost cycles,” and also to disable automated alerts from sensors designed to go off when temperatures exceeded certain levels.
Sweden’s Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin warned that more cyberattacks could be expected in the coming months, as AI tools make it easier to detect and exploit vulnerabilities.
He said that it was not yet possible to say if hacks targeted Swedish supermarkets last week were connected, not least because the type of sabotage would have “been easy to copy” after seeing the initial reports in October.
