France Accuses Iran-Linked Group of Fridge Hacking

France has accused a group it calls Shahid Kaveh, which it says is linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), of hacking refrigeration systems in French supermarkets. According to French officials, the alleged campaign reached hundreds of stores, where the systems were controlled remotely and temperatures were raised, spoiling food worth millions of euros.

French officials say the cyberattack took place on October 11 and 12 and targeted 700 commercial sites across France. Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called the attack "unprecedented in its level of aggression".

The IRGC is a branch of Iran's armed forces. The Paris prosecutor's office described Shahid Kaveh as an offensive cyber unit affiliated with the IRGC's cyberelectronic command, known as the CEC. French spy and cyber agencies named Hamid Reza Lashgarian as head of the CEC, and Mahdi Lashgarian and Reza Salarvand as commanders in the Shahid Kaveh unit.

The United States had previously imposed sanctions, which are government restrictions on assets and dealings, on Hamid Reza Lashgarian and Mahdi Lashgarian over alleged ties to the IRGC's cyber unit.

French agencies said the unit operates through front groups, meaning organisations that present themselves as independent, posing as vigilante hackers. They named CyberAveng3rs and Cyber Isnaad Front. The group's name appears to honour Mahmoud Kaveh, an IRGC commander who died aged 25 in 1986 during the Iran-Iraq war.

Iran has denied any role in the cyberattacks, calling the accusations "baseless and biased".