The French government has attributed the recent spate of hacks affecting food freezers to Iran, with an official statement saying it condemned the attacks “in the strongest terms.” It marked the first time a culprit has been named since the incidents took place.
French investigators named the Iranian unit that they believed to be responsible as Shahid Kaveh, which the French statement said was “affiliated with the electronic and cyber center of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran.”
The statement did not explain how investigators reached their conclusion, though it said French cyber and intelligence agencies would publish a joint technical report. Iran had not responded at the time of writing. There was also no mention of the recent cyberattack on French blood stocks, which remains unattributed.
However, the French government noted that Iran has previously been held responsible for other attacks on French infrastructure and institutions. That included targeting the weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2023 and the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. After those instances, the European Union imposed sanctions on the Iranian company Emmenet Pasargad in March 2026, which it believed to be at least partially responsible.
This time, France says it will propose further sanctions “against Iranian entities and individuals involved in this cyberattack” to the European Union. It also noted that it “reserves the right to take any additional measures, public and non-public, deemed necessary and proportionate to respond to these cyberattacks.”
And it will summon the Iranian Ambassador to France in order to “express its strongest condemnation of these cyberattacks,” noting that “these destructive cyberattacks are unjustifiable, inexcusable and run counter to international law.”
Iranian attribution ‘isn’t a surprise’
Writing in the government communiqué, the French authorities said that the cyber breach, which took place over the night of October 11-12, affected more than 700 retail sites within France. The operation caused “considerable material damage, fires and food losses estimated at tens of millions of euros” and represented “a major attack on the interests of the Nation and the security of the French.”
It added that the attack was “unprecedented in its scale and level of aggressiveness” and constituted “the first cyber-offensive campaign carried out purely for the purpose of sabotage on the national territory” of France.
Speaking to CISO Voice, Gary Barlet, Public Sector CTO at Illumio, said “France has pointed the finger at Iran, and honestly, if that’s confirmed, it isn’t a surprise. Iran-linked groups have a track record of going after exposed, internet-connected equipment. But I’m impressed that France is planning to pursue sanctions at a European level.”
Barlet, who is also a retired Air Force cyber operations officer and former CIO for the Office of the Inspector General, US Postal Service, added that “It’s not yet clear what form those sanctions will take, so that will be interesting to see. But this needs to happen more often. Too often an attack gets publicly called out, there’s outrage, and then nothing happens. It sends a message to attackers that the cost of doing this is close to zero.”
Indeed, with France’s top cyber agency warning that further attacks could be on the way, it’s clear that the French government wants to take decisive action to deter additional disruption. France is far from the only nation affected by the hacks, so it will be interesting to see if any other governments follow its footsteps in naming Iran as the culprit.
