France opens probe into Iranian cyber unit over fridge attacks

And with us, French officials say they suspect Iran was behind the cyber attacks that knocked out commercial refrigerators and freezers across France last month. Some of the best-known supermarket names were hit by this sabotage that saw temperatures soar and produce spoil. There was a second wave of almost identical hacking that hit over 100 establishments across Europe earlier this month. All this condemned by the EU as an attempt on the bloc's food security, while France has requested international arrest warrants against the leader of the Shahid Kaveh cyber attack unit affiliated to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and Iran's ambassador has been summoned. Maya yet again with this. A month after a massive cyber attack knocked out hundreds of fridges and freezers across France, forcing Super... Markets to throw out entire stocks of perishable food, Iran is still denying any involvement. But Paris now officially blames Tehran for what it calls the first large-scale cyber attack designed to sabotage French infrastructure. Je suis en mesure de confirmer que la responsabilité... I can confirm that this attack was carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This attack is unprecedented in both its scale and its level of aggression. It's inédit. We will take any other proportionate and necessary measures, whether public or private, to respond to this attack and deter those who might want to repeat it. France has summoned the Iranian ambassador in Paris and is threatening further European sanctions against Iran. An investigation has been opened against the head of Shahid Kaveh, a cyber-offensive unit tied to the Revolutionary Guard. The total cost of the hacks could reach into the tens of millions of euros nationwide. On November 2nd, a second wave of cyber attacks struck grocery stores in at least nine other European countries. Even French blood banks were hit, forcing staff to transfer blood supplies to other cold storage facilities. Iran is suspected of involvement in a string of malicious cyber operations since the beginning of the war with the United States in February. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is investigating a similar incident at U.S. military bases in August when refrigerators were mysteriously shut down in at least half a dozen military commissaries. Yet again, with that report, let's get more on the story and bring in Philip Taylor, International Affairs Editor. Philip, this is very much a chilling story, no pun intended there, but if you think about the possible consequences, especially when you're concerned about a blood bank, clearly it could be very dangerous. It's very dangerous. Any idea actually sort of who is really behind all of this? Well, we've got the name of the organization that is suspected of having orchestrated all of this, Shahid Kaveh, which is a cyber attack group within Iran under the auspices of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. That's why France has asked for these international and west warrants against the leader of Shahid Kaveh and also two of his deputies. The reason that they know that this was Iran or they believe that this was Iran, Mark, is because the investigators found writings in Farsi and they also linked the IPs that we use in these attacks back to Iran. So that put, I think, no doubt in their mind that we were not in the hands of the Russians. I think many thought in France that this was the work of Russian cyber attackers, Russian hackers. But in fact, it's the Iranians. ...that have been behind this, and they've been the ones that have been attacking France. And not only France, as we've heard, but they've been having two of these attacks. And it is quite spectacular. First of all, 100 Super U supermarkets in France, 100 Intermarché and Netto supermarkets, plus Carrefour, Monoprix, Leclerc, they've all been hit. They're all major supermarkets chains in this country. So we're talking about tens of thousands of euros worth of lost food and comestibles, which have all ended up, as we've seen in skips, because once they are defrosted, not only defrosted, but the temperature went right the way up to about 50 degrees. In some cases, even those refrigerators caught fire. There's no way you can sell that So I think there was an attempt here to undermine France, Safety of these fridges in France and also to send a message to the French that, well, we can affect your fridges and also we can cause problems as far as getting food to people is concerned. Now, there's another thing that's quite interesting in all of this. I think this is where it's blown a whistle to the French authorities. Why was this possible? Why was it possible to stop all these fridges when you think that in each supermarket they will be able to adjust the fridge the way they wanted to without having this? ...global, this national way of dealing with all the fridges in one go. I think basically the reason is that many of those fridges were obsolete. And the second point, which is important to underline here, is that they were running outdated firmware or software, which means that they were much easier to infiltrate by these hackers than they would have been if they were right straight out of the... So lessons to be learned, as you say. Okay. Um, uh, And as you mentioned, this isn't the only cyber attack, is it? So there must be some kind of issue regarding communication in future, which could sort of create problems for people. Well, the blood bank, that was one. I think that's a very worrying aspect because obviously blood banks are dependent on refrigerators to keep the blood fresh before it's used in a transfusion. If those go down, then that's going to cause a lot of problems for people who need a blood transfusion and urgently. Remember, over the last few days, we've had all these messages coming through about bomb threats on planes in Europe. 32 bomb threats affecting a dozen airlines in the space of only four days. One airline spectacularly rerouted in France on its way from Dublin to Rome, rerouted to the town of Evra, having gone round and round in circles before it landed. But no. A bomb was found on board. All of this is an effort to destabilize Europe, destabilize France. We don't know if those bomb threats on the planes were coming from the Iranians. They could be coming from the Russians. They could be coming from elsewhere. But it all shows the vulnerability of the system that we are being governed by and we're dependent on on a daily basis. And I think this is like a wake up call to the authorities that I think maybe more needs to be done in the future to make sure that we are safe. One last point, Mark, I think it's important to underline here. And that is that in many cases in Europe, countries are asking the population to put food aside. They say have at least three days food that you can use, like in tins or biscuits, things that won't go off. so that if there is a cyber attack And all goes down and you can't go to a shop because the shop can't open because it's been the victim of a cyber attack, then at least you will have something to eat. Several countries have done that. The UK has done it. Denmark has done it. France hasn't done it yet. But I think that is something that everyone needs to bear in mind that we're all vulnerable today as these attacks were shown on these refrigerators. Let's hope that that's the end of it. But it shows that in this day and age, one can't be too sure. We've stocked up for the dogs. I think we'd better stock up for ourselves as well. Thank you, Philip, very much indeed for that explanation of what is happening alongside this story. Philip Till, our international affairs editor. Great to see you, sir. Thank you.