France blames Iran's Revolutionary Guards for supermarket fridge cyberattacks, Tehran denies

The French accusation

On Tuesday, 10 November, France formally blamed Iran for a cyberattack that disabled refrigeration in supermarkets across the country. The French foreign ministry said the overnight attack on the night of 11 to 12 October reached about 700 retail sites. Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot named the Shahid Kaveh cyber unit, which is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as the responsible group. He cited technical evidence found by French investigators, including Iranian IP addresses used during the attack. According to The Irish Times, the hackers reached the software that controls fridge temperatures and pushed them as high as 50 degrees, and chains including Carrefour, Monoprix, Intermarché and U were hit, leading to the mass disposal of fresh food. Fires also broke out, and Paris summoned Iran's ambassador in response.

In its statement, the French government described the campaign in stark terms.

This campaign was unprecedented in its scale and level of aggressiveness and has been the first offensive cyber campaign carried out purely for the purposes of sabotage on French soil.

Iran's denial

Iran's foreign ministry rejected the accusations the same day, Tuesday, 10 November. The ministry's statement said:

It categorically rejects the French government's baseless and one-sided accusations against Iran regarding alleged cyber activities in France.

The ministry called the charges irresponsible and ridiculous and accused Paris of trying to divert attention from its own failures. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi argued that France could not manage fridge temperatures at home and was shifting blame onto foreign actors for its own shortcomings. The ministry also said Tehran would take all necessary measures to protect its national interests and security. Earlier, on Monday, 9 November, the Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced an investigation targeting the leader of the Shahid Kaveh group and his two deputies.

Responses in Europe and Germany

A European Commission spokesperson expressed full solidarity with Paris and said the EU was ready for a quick and united response once member states had discussed the matter. The EU had already sanctioned the Iranian company Emennet Pasargad in March, and the spokesperson said work on further cyber sanctions was under way. In Germany, security authorities have not yet determined who is behind the attacks on supermarkets there. Those cases are being handled by a joint platform for federal and state authorities that deals with hybrid threats. Intelligence services in Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, Estonia and the Netherlands, where supermarket fridges were also hacked in later attacks, have not yet named any culprits.

Wider war context

The attacks come against the backdrop of the war between Iran and the United States and Israel. In February, those two countries carried out a series of strikes that killed senior Iranian officials, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles and drones at US allies in the region, including the United Arab Emirates. Experts see a rise in Iranian cyber operations since the war began, including a March attack on the US medical technology company Stryker that wiped its global computer systems. Whether the fridge attacks are linked to the war remains unclear. The Wall Street Journal reported that an Iranian threat prompted the US Air Force to move 12 military transport aircraft from RAF Mildenhall in England.