Iran has denied it was behind the recent cyberattacks on more than 700 food retail sites in France, calling the accusations “baseless.”
In a statement, Iran’s Foreign Minister said it “categorically rejects the French government’s baseless and one-sided accusations against Iran regarding alleged cyber activities in France, adding that it “strongly condemns this hackneyed policy of leveling accusations against the Islamic republic.”
Authorities in France earlier this week attributed the recent attacks to hackers with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran.
Following an investigation, France’s Cyber Crisis Coordination Centre (C4) said it was able to attribute the attacks “to the Shahid Kaveh cyber-offensive unit, affiliated with the electronic and cyber center of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran.”
The attacks, which took place on October 11 and 12, compromised refrigerator controllers at supermarkets and other retailers across France. Hackers remotely reset these controllers to high temperatures, leading to fires and an estimated “tens of millions of euros” in food spoilage.
“This is an unprecedented campaign in terms of its scale and level of aggressiveness, thus constituting the first cyber offensive campaign carried out purely for the purpose of sabotage on national territory,” France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs said this week in a statement.
The Ministry said it would use “all available means of response” to address these attacks, including propising new sanctions against “Iranian entities and individuals involved in this cyberattack against it, as well as in other malicious cyber activities.”
The Paris prosecutor’s office meanwhile said it would open a judicial investigation “for fraudulent attacks on an automated data processing system and damage by a dangerous means, in an organized gang, aggravated by the aim of serving a foreign power, in this case, Iran, as well as for participation in a criminal conspiracy with a view to preparing a crime.”
The attacks targeted software from Danish firm Danfoss that allow food retailers to remotely control cold storage units. Major French food retailers including Carrefour, Monoprix, and E.Leclerc, as well as Coopérative U and Intermarché were among those impact by the attacks.
France’s C4 said it was also “aware of other victims in the agri-food sector including several small butcher shops, a slaughterhouse, and cooperative agri-food factories.”
A second set of hacks took place in November, impacting over 100 stores across Luxembourg, Belgium, Sweden, and the Netherlands, among others.
