French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot blamed Iran on Monday for an October cyberattack that sent refrigerator temperatures soaring at 700 supermarkets in France.
Paris prosecutors said in a statement that Iran's Revolutionary Guard was behind the attack. The country's digital security watchdog, ANSSI, traced the operation to Shahid Kaveh, a hacking branch tied to the Revolutionary Guard.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the judicial inquiry formally began Monday, covering suspected organized cybercrime carried out on behalf of a foreign state, which she identified as Iran. The inquiry names the group's leader and his two deputies, along with anyone else who is identified, and prosecutors want arrest warrants issued internationally. Investigators determined the attackers worked in Farsi and operated from IP addresses connected to equipment in Iran, according to The Associated Press .
Barrot said France was summoning the Iranian ambassador "to strongly protest against this extremely serious act." He described it as the first sabotage-driven, large-scale cyber assault ever staged inside France and said it "will not go unanswered." France would push for sanctions at the European level targeting the perpetrators, he said.
Barrot said on Tuesday that France is "not ruling anything out," according to CNBC . Possible responses include keeping anyone deemed culpable out of Europe and freezing their assets.
In the early hours of Oct. 12, hackers gained remote command of the cooling equipment in supermarkets and independent stores. Cooling units heated up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) and stayed that hot for roughly six hours, forcing stores to throw away fresh and frozen goods. Intermarché reported losses of "tens of millions of euros" in a single day, according to The Associated Press.
The attackers went after controllers for refrigeration units that Danfoss and Dixell supply, according to CNBC. They gained access via the equipment's online interfaces, triggered defrost cycles with no time limit and switched off the sensors' safety warnings. Intermarché, E. Leclerc, Carrefour, Monoprix and Coopérative U were among the retailers affected.
The attack disabled refrigeration systems at Intermarché, Coopérative U and Leclerc stores on the night of Oct. 11 to 12 by pushing Danfoss-made cooling systems into a nonstop defrost cycle. Months earlier, in August, Team82, the research arm of cybersecurity firm Claroty, had released a report on a hidden authentication mechanism in Danfoss systems that could be exploited to tamper with refrigeration operations.
Supermarkets in other European countries also reported fridge and freezer problems in November, according to CNBC.
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