France blames IRGC hackers for supermarket freezer breach
Default passwords allowed attackers to raise temperatures, causing fires and massive food waste across French stores.
By Nikolai Patterson ·
France attributed a cyberattack on supermarket refrigeration systems to hackers operating under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The state-backed group is a key branch of Iran’s military establishment. This marks the first time a nation has officially linked this specific type of industrial hack to an Iranian state actor.
The intrusion relied on default passwords to access fridge controls. Rafe Pilling, a senior director at cybersecurity firm Sophos, described the method as consistent with Iranian capabilities. He noted that the attacks were not particularly complex. Some units had their temperatures raised so high that they caught fire.
Employees at affected stores disposed of large quantities of spoiled meat and melted ice cream. The disruption drew global attention despite the absence of a visible message from the attackers. In 2023, Iranian-affiliated hackers broadcast a deepfake news report in the United Arab Emirates and displayed anti-Israel slogans on water-control screens in Israel.
France’s foreign minister called the incident an act of unprecedented scale and aggression. The minister promised Europe-wide sanctions against those responsible. The French government is now imposing these measures as part of its response to the breach.
The incident follows similar disruptions at an Israeli food plant in May and US military bases in August. Those earlier events involved freezer malfunctions that spoiled food. While those attacks have not been officially attributed to Iran, Pilling said there is now a presumption linking the French attacks to a wave of rogue defrosting hacks seen across Europe last week.
The UK’s national cybersecurity center recently warned that the country is in the foothills of a new threat level. Officials expect a huge rise in cyber incidents, with artificial intelligence playing a major role in exposing system flaws. However, the supermarket attacks stemmed from basic vulnerabilities rather than advanced AI techniques. The geopolitical context of Iran projecting power internationally remains the primary driver behind the operation.
