France said that hackers linked to Iran attacked its refrigerators. Industrial equipment in supermarkets and food enterprises was hit. Paris summoned the Iranian ambassador and threatened new EU sanctions, Reuters reports. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
The reason for the diplomatic scandal looks unusual, but the consequences turned out to be quite serious. According to French authorities, 700 commercial sites became targets of the hackers. Fires broke out at at least 15 of them. Store employees had to throw away spoiled meat and melted ice cream. According to one supermarket owner's estimate, damage across the country could reach tens of millions of euros.
French special services blamed the Shahid Kaveh unit, linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Paris prosecutor's office requested international arrest warrants for suspected participants in the attacks.
In November, the refrigeration front expanded: a new wave of attacks affected more than 100 enterprises in Europe, as well as refrigerators of French blood banks. Employees had to move part of the supplies to other chambers.
Iran's mission to the UN did not respond to Reuters' request. Previously, Tehran has repeatedly denied involvement in malicious cyber operations.
At the same time, experts link the success of the attacks primarily to the vulnerability of the equipment. Some devices were outdated or running on old software. As Proofpoint threat researcher Saher Naumaan noted, what happened shows "how vulnerable these systems are."