France blames Iran for supermarket fridge hacking

France has blamed Iran’s Revolutionary Guard for a cyber-attack that heated fridges and freezers in hundreds of French supermarkets, and it has vowed European sanctions against those responsible.

France has accused Iran of being behind cyber-attacks that raised the temperatures of fridges and freezers in hundreds of French supermarkets, BBC News reports.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the attack, carried out by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was “unprecedented in both its scale and its level of aggression”.

He added that France would “implement sanctions at the European level against all those responsible for this attack”.

On October 11, hackers took control of temperature-regulating software from Danish firm Danfoss, spoiling food worth millions of euros. More than 100 Coopérative U stores and 180 Intermarché and Netto stores were hit, and some fridges reportedly reached 50C overnight.

The Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, said an investigation had been opened into the head of an IRGC-linked cyber unit, Shahid Kaveh, and his two deputies.

Iran has yet to respond. France has not said how it reached its conclusion. A separate attack last week hit supermarkets in seven other European countries.