Australia reviewing risks to supermarkets after Europe cyber attacks

Australia’s security agencies are reviewing risks to local supermarkets after hundreds of costly cyber attacks targeting freezers in Europe.

Affairs Minister Tony Burke has warned Australians that any device connected to the internet is “hackable”, as France blames Iran for a large-scale cyber attack targeting supermarket freezers.

Hackers last month overrode temperature controls for freezers in more than 700 stores across France, with some getting so hot they caught fire.

Total costs are stilling being tallied, but estimates for products spoiled sit in the tens of millions of dollars.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Tuesday that “this attack was carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

“This attack is unprecedented in both its scale and its level of aggression,” he said.

The IRGC has an iron grip on every aspect of the Iranian regime, steering everything from defence and espionage to the economy and education.

Answering directly to the supreme leader, its core mission is to safeguard the Islamic theocracy at all costs.

Australia passed legislation last year allowing it to list the IRGC as a state sponsor of terrorism after intelligence agencies found it masterminded several antisemitic attacks in Australian.

“It marks the first large-scale cyberattack aimed at sabotage on our national territory, and it constitutes a major attack on the nation’s interests and the security of the French people,” Mr Barrot said.

“We will implement sanctions at the European level against all those responsible.”

Fronting media in Canberra, Mr Burke confirmed agencies were reviewing any risks to Australia’s supermarkets.

“And effectively the nature of how so much of the economy works now, including in issues like food security, is if you have a connected device, then potentially you have a hackable device,” he said.

“So, Europe has seen that with respect to refrigeration. My agencies never stop working through that.”

Earlier this month, another wave of attacks targeted supermarkets in other European countries.

While smaller, dozens of stores were affected.