France accuses Iran's Revolutionary Guards of cyberattack that hijacked supermarket refrigerators

France on Monday formally accused Iran's Revolutionary Guards of orchestrating a cyberattack that seized control of supermarket refrigerators across the country last month, with Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot saying there would be consequences for Tehran over the incident.

The Paris prosecutor's office said it had requested international arrest warrants for the leader of Shahid Kaveh, described as an offensive cyber unit affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, along with his two deputies. A joint report from French intelligence and cyber agencies named three alleged associates of the unit: Hamid Reza Lashgarian, Mahdi Lashgarian and Reza Salarvand. Reuters could not immediately locate contact details for the men, whose photographs were included in the report.

According to the French report, the hackers operated through numerous front groups posing as vigilante hackers, including outfits calling themselves CyberAveng3rs and Cyber Isnaad Front. Investigators said they tied Shahid Kaveh to the intrusion by matching its pattern to previous hacks attributed to the group and by recovering traces of Farsi in the attack infrastructure.

The report said a total of 700 commercial sites were targeted across France and that at least 15 fires broke out after the hackers turned up the heat inside refrigeration units. Supermarkets bore the brunt of the attack, but small butcher stores, a slaughterhouse and factories processing foodstuffs were also affected.

The Oct. 11 attack overrode temperature controls on commercial fridges in hundreds of establishments, and cybersecurity experts previously told Reuters it appeared to have been easy to pull off. The firm behind many of the stricken units said several were obsolete or running outdated firmware, which could have made them simple to breach. The damage was nonetheless dramatic: some refrigerators caught fire, and in the hours after the hack supermarket employees carted boxes of perished meat and melted ice cream to giant trash containers. One French supermarket owner estimated the nationwide costs could reach tens of millions of euros.

Reuters could not establish exactly how the French made their determination. At least one tech company, Microsoft, had privately tied Iran to the October refrigerator hacks at least two weeks ago, according to three people familiar with the matter. Microsoft declined to comment.

The French attack was followed this month by a second wave of hacking that struck more than 100 establishments across Europe and even reached refrigerators used by French blood banks, forcing employees to move some blood to different cold storage units.

The seemingly straightforward nature of the refrigerator hacks, and their repetition across multiple countries, fueled speculation about who was responsible, set against concerns over Russia's suspected sabotage campaign in Europe, the war between the United States and Iran and the global rise of AI-powered cyberattacks.

The European sabotage was preceded by at least one similar incident in the United States. In August, refrigerators in at least half a dozen military commissaries went out of commission, and Pentagon investigators are treating the malfunctions as a suspected cyberattack while working with French officials, Reuters reported last month. Reuters could not independently establish any link between the U.S. incidents, the French campaign and the more recent European wave. The Pentagon said Monday it is "aware of speculation regarding a potential cyber incident" but could not offer further comment for security reasons.