Iran denies it was behind cyber fridge attacks targeting France

Résumé détaillé

France says Iranian military hackers took over refrigeration controllers at around 700 different retail sites last month, turning up temperatures in the middle of the night and spoiling millions of dollars' worth of food.

A woman walks past empty refrigerators at an Intermarché supermarket in Névez, western France, on Oct. 12, following a cyberattack affecting the French supermarket chains Intermarché and Cooperative U that caused their refrigerators to defrost. FRED TANNEAU/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

France is accusing Iran of having launched a series of destructive cyberattacks against its critical infrastructure in October.

According to the French National Cybersecurity Agency, ANSSI, Iranian military hackers took over refrigeration controllers at around 700 different retail sites in France, from supermarkets to butcher shops, turning up the temperature in the middle of the night and spoiling millions of dollars' worth of food.

They also targeted several small hydroelectric power plants, resulting in "moderate effects," wrote ANSSI in its press release.

The hacking campaign was "unprecedented in both its scale and its level of aggression," said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot. 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 Prosecutor's Office has opened its own investigation into the Iranian cyber unit, Shahid Kaveh, which the French government is linking 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 attacks on French industrial controllers 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, employees at a major French blood bank had to act fast to save blood samples from heating up when their refrigeration system was hit last week, prompting international calls…

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