Original Coverage & Source Attribution: www.arabnews.jp
- Hacks that struck hundreds of French supermarkets in early October were among the most disruptive cyberattacks of the Iran war that began in February
AFP
PARIS: France on Monday said Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were behind “unprecedented” cyberattacks on supermarket fridges in the country last month, vowing sanctions on a European level against Tehran.
“I can confirm that this attack was carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said of the cyberattacks on French supermarkets that occurred October 11 and 12.
“This attack is unprecedented in both its scale and its level of aggression,” he said, adding “we will implement sanctions at the European level against all those responsible for this attack.”
The hacks that struck hundreds of French supermarkets in early October were among the most disruptive cyberattacks of the Iran war that began in February, a conflict that has been marked by scattered incidents of alleged digital disruption. These have included hacks against the Los Angeles transit system in March, against US water treatment plants in July and against ships bound for the United States in August.
US refrigerator hacks
The sabotage of European supermarket fridges 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. Pentagon investigators are treating the malfunctions as a suspected cyberattack and are working with French officials to get to the bottom of what happened, Reuters reported last month.
Reuters could not independently establish whether there was any link between the refrigeration incidents at US military bases in August, the hacking campaign in France and the more recent wave of refrigeration hacks that struck Europe.
A person familiar with the matter said that the Pentagon considers Iran a suspect in the August commissary hacks but that the investigation is still in progress.
Reuters could not establish how the military made its determination or whether it was also looking into other suspects. That the US military considers Iran a suspect in the commissary sabotage campaign was first reported last month by news website Nextgov.
The Pentagon said on Monday that it is “aware of speculation regarding a potential cyber incident” but that military investigators were on the case and it could not offer further comment for security reasons.
