France blames Iran for mass-hacks targeting freezers in grocery stores and blood banks

The French government has officially accused Iran of orchestrating a series of cyberattacks that targeted numerous industrial refrigeration and freezer systems across France and parts of Europe. This marks the most recent in a series of damaging cyberattacks attributed to Iran this year, including earlier intrusions targeting U.S. water providers and other digital intrusions that disrupted major U.S. medical device manufacturer Stryker and others.

The U.S. has linked these attacks to Iranian-backed hackers, possibly motivated by the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Iran, which culminated in the death of Iran's supreme leader in February. During October and November, two waves of cyberattacks occurred, allowing hackers to remotely access web-based controllers governing large fleets of industrial cold and chilling units at grocery stores and supermarkets, and elevate temperatures to spoil food and destroy inventory.

Thankfully, medical blood banks were spared from the attacks, but security experts have since warned that the web-based controllers are susceptible to remote hacks, with some models from Danish manufacturer Danfoss no longer receiving security updates. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot made the attribution official in a statement to reporters on Monday, describing the attack as "an unprecedented scale and aggression" and the first major act of sabotage on French soil, threatening national interests and public safety.

He added that France would not tolerate such actions and would "not go without consequences." The French government has summoned Iran's ambassador, and announced it would impose European-wide sanctions against the perpetrators. Barrot said the matter would be handled by the French judicial system. Iran's consulate in New York declined to comment on the accusations.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is investigating whether military freezer units were also hacked, following reports of similar outages earlier this year. The U.S. intelligence community has also linked the cyberattack to Iran, though no formal attribution has yet been publicly released.