France summons Iranian ambassador over supermarket refrigeration cyberattacks
Paris says it will seek European Union sanctions after blaming Iran’s Revolutionary Guard for attacks that spoiled food at more than 700 French supermarkets.
By Larissa Bell ·
France has summoned Iran’s ambassador to Paris to protest against cyberattacks that targeted supermarket refrigeration systems last month, with Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot warning that the government could take further action. French authorities accuse Tehran of responsibility for the attacks, which caused widespread food losses.
Speaking on France Info television on Tuesday, November 10, Barrot described the incidents as the first large-scale cyberattack intended to cause sabotage on French territory. He said they represented a major attack on national interests and public security. France would seek European Union sanctions, he added, characterising the attacks as unprecedented in their scale and aggression in the country.
Barrot said the government was considering all options and could take measures that would not be made public. Any response, he said, would be judged necessary and proportionate to preventing further attacks. He also said France would act firmly to discourage anyone in Iran or elsewhere from attempting similar operations.
On Monday, Barrot attributed the October 11 and 12 attacks to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. More than 700 French supermarkets were targeted, with attackers remotely accessing refrigerators and triggering abnormal defrost cycles that continued indefinitely. As temperatures rose, the affected supermarkets had to discard all perishable food.
Retailers put the value of the spoiled food at millions of euros. Some stores also experienced fires or melting equipment as temperatures increased. The supermarket groups affected included E-Leclerc, Intermarche, Carrefour, Monoprix and Cooperative U.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced on Monday that she had opened an investigation into Shahid Kaveh, an IRGC cyber unit, in connection with the attacks. Her office has requested international arrest warrants for two officials from the unit.
Other European countries have subsequently reported similar incidents. On November 2, stores in Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Luxembourg and Sweden recorded temperature spikes in what was suspected to be a cyberattack.
Identifying the group directly responsible can be difficult, according to Jody Westby, chief executive of Global Cyber Risk LLC. Speaking to Al Jazeera, she said weak cooperation in international cybercrime investigations had remained a problem for more than 20 years, with only marginal improvement. She also cited the nature of packet switching as an obstacle to tracing where such attacks originate.
Separately, false bomb alerts involving dozens of flights have disrupted European air traffic in recent days. The source of those threats has not yet been established.
