France attributes widespread grocery refrigeration sabotage to Iranian military hackers

The French government has formally blamed Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for an October sabotage campaign that breached industrial refrigeration controllers at about 700 retail locations, including chains such as Carrefour, Casino, Leclerc, Metro, Coopérative U, and Intermarché. Overnight between October 11 and October 12, the cyberattacks altered defrost settings, sparking at least 15 fires and destroying tens of millions of euros worth of perishable food. In response, France summoned the Iranian ambassador and announced plans to push for European Union sanctions against the perpetrators. [1][2][4]

According to reports from French cybersecurity and intelligence authorities, the sabotage was executed by Shahid Kaveh, an IRGC offensive unit widely known by online aliases such as CyberAv3ngers. Investigators traced the intrusion infrastructure to prior reconnaissance on industrial systems, noting the presence of Farsi language, searches via the device platform FOFA, and rapid promotion of the incident by the linked outlet CyberbanNews. Attacks also targeted equipment at small hydroelectric installations and three French Blood Establishment facilities, though officials confirmed no blood supplies were lost. [2][3][4]

The French attribution covers the October grocery incidents, but related cooling hacks have since reached supermarkets in Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Sweden, prompting the FBI and CISA to issue security advisories protecting cold-chain operations. [2][3][4]