The French government has accused Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of perpetrating the October cyberattack that spoiled tens of millions of euro worth of food by raising the temperature of supermarket fridges.

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said that the Iranian ambassador had been summoned to the ministry, describing the attack as “unprecedented in both its scale and its level of aggression”. He added that those responsible would be hit by further sanctions.

Iran has yet to comment on the attacks, but some news outlets in the country have
dismissed the claims as baseless, according to the BBC.

The attack marked “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,” Barrot said.

The Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, said that her office had opened an investigation into Shahid Kav, an offensive cyberattack unit associated with the IRGC, one of Iran’s two military forces.

The attack, which took place on 11 October, saw hackers raise the temperature of fridges in more than 150 French supermarkets to over 50 degrees Celsius for several hours, causing mass food spoilage and leading some to catch fire.

It was one of the largest cyberattacks on an EU member state and exposed an issue in temperature management software provided by Danish company Danfoss.

The attack was followed by a separate hack in November, which raised the temperature of fridges and freezers in supermarkets across seven European countries. It is unknown if the attack is directly related to the one on France despite the similarity in attack vector.

The French government has not released information on how it has come to believe that Iran is responsible for the hack.

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