France Accuses Iran Cyber Attack on 700 Retail Fridge Sites
France's national cybersecurity agency says Iranian military hackers took over refrigeration controllers at about 700 retail sites in October, spoiling food worth millions of dollars. Paris prosecutors have asked for international arrest warrants against an Iranian cyber unit.
France accuses Iran of a destructive cyber campaign against its critical infrastructure in October, saying Iranian military hackers took over refrigeration controllers at around 700 retail sites, according to the French National Cybersecurity Agency, known as ANSSI.
The sites ranged from supermarkets to butcher shops. ANSSI said the hackers turned up the temperature in the middle of the night, spoiling millions of dollars' worth of food.
They also targeted several small hydroelectric power plants, resulting in "moderate effects," ANSSI wrote in its press release.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called the campaign "unprecedented in both its scale and its level of aggression." He said it "marks the first large-scale cyberattack aimed at sabotage on our national territory, and it constitutes a major attack on the nation's interests and the security of the French people."
The Paris Public Prosecutor's Office has opened its own investigation into the Iranian cyber unit Shahid Kaveh, which the French government links to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. "The Paris Public Prosecutor's Office is requesting the issuance of international arrest warrants," the office said in a statement.
The French government is the first to formally assign blame for the wave of destructive attacks.
ANSSI said investigators identified the hackers through several digital clues. They included infrastructure used by the attackers, a connection to a propaganda outlet and "traces" of Farsi in the attack.
A wider pattern of fridge attacks
The French incidents are part of a larger trend. In 2026 alone, hackers have targeted refrigeration controllers from Europe to Israel and the United States.
Grocery stores in European countries including Sweden and Ireland were hit in similar attacks last week. In a separate incident in France, staff at a major blood bank had to act fast to stop blood samples heating up when their refrigeration system was hit last week.
In Israel in the spring, suspected Iranian hackers calling themselves "Cyber Isnaad Front" claimed responsibility for sabotaging an industrial food processing plant. Cyber incident response firm Profero attributed that attack to a wing of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.
A propaganda video from that group, released in early October, contained a taunt in French about education-related protests. It came just before the attacks on French supermarket fridges.
Over the summer, food also spoiled at commissaries on U.S. military bases after temperatures shot up overnight in refrigerators and freezers. U.S. officials suspect Iran may have been behind the August incidents, NPR and others have reported, but the Pentagon has made no official statement.
Mollie Halpern, a spokesperson for the Department of War Office of the Inspector General, said its Criminal Investigative Service "does not discuss ongoing investigations."
