France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot has accused Iranian authorities of "extremely serious" cyber attacks targeting supermarket refrigeration systems, raising fears of threats to the country’s food security. The Paris prosecutor’s office announced a judicial investigation into the head of Shahid Kaveh, a cyber unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and his two deputies, adding it was seeking international arrest warrants. More than 700 retail sites across France were targeted in an overnight cyber attack on October 11 to 12, causing tens of millions of euros’ worth of food losses and the outbreak of at least 20 fires as temperatures were remotely increased to as high as 80C.
Major retailers including Carrefour, Intermarché, Monoprix, Cooperative U and Netto were affected after older models of Dixell and Danfoss fridge systems were left vulnerable. France had summoned the Iranian ambassador and planned to enforce sanctions at the European level. Iranian state-backed hacking groups are known for compromising weak or default credentials to access internet-exposed systems.
The French foreign minister warned that the attack cannot go unanswered and vowed proportional and necessary measures to deter future repeats.
Source: Financial Times Companies · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing