An October cyberattack on refrigeration controllers at about 700 French retail sites was carried out by a cyber unit of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the French government said yesterday.
The attackers broke into controllers on the night of October 11 and changed their defrost settings to high temperatures. That caused food losses and, in at least 15 cases, fires.
The unit is called Shahid Kaveh. It is known mainly through hacktivist personas, such as CyberAveng3rs and Cyber Isnaad Front, that publicly claim some of its attacks, France says.
France's Foreign Ministry plans to summon Iran's ambassador and to ask its European partners to adopt new sanctions against Iranian organizations and individuals involved in the attack.
The Paris prosecutor's office opened a judicial investigation yesterday against the unit's head, the head's two deputies and anyone else identified. It has asked for international arrest warrants. The offenses under investigation include illegally interfering with computer systems and causing damage by means dangerous to people, both made more serious by the aim of serving a foreign power, Iran.
In the October attack, the attackers took remote control of Danfoss and Dixell refrigeration controllers through web interfaces, the prosecutor's office said in a press release. They started abnormal defrost cycles with no time limit and switched off the temperature probes' safety alerts, which should go off above a certain temperature. The attack caused about 20 fires.
Most of the organizations hit were large retailers, according to a joint report by France's cyber crisis coordination center, known as C4.
Source link
