Belgium said on Thursday that Iran could be behind cyberattacks on supermarket refrigeration systems in the country this month, days after France blamed Tehran for a similar attack in October.

Interior Minister Bernard Quintin told parliament that evidence gathered by Belgian authorities pointed at Tehran, but he stopped short of officially attributing the hack. "According to reliable evidence obtained by our agencies, Iran could potentially be behind the attacks on the refrigeration systems of several major retail chains, as was the case in France," he said, adding that he wanted to remain "diplomatically cautious."

Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot had said earlier on Thursday that it would be premature to officially attribute the cyberattack. Quintin described the attack on Belgian supermarkets as an act of "destabilization," and said the federal prosecutor's office is investigating the case as a matter of the highest priority. The prosecutor's office declined to provide further details.

Dozens of Belgian supermarkets reported refrigeration problems on November 2 that forced some retailers to discard food. Media reports counted at least 76 outlets affected in Belgium, including about 40 Delhaize, 15 Carrefour and five Spar stores, along with an IKEA store in Mons. Similar issues were reported by stores in Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.

France was hit by a similar attack three weeks earlier, on the night of October 11-12, when refrigeration controls at more than 700 retail sites were targeted. Paris has blamed Shahid Kaveh, a cyber unit it describes as affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, summoned Iran's ambassador, and called for the European Union to impose more sanctions on Iran. Iran's foreign ministry has rejected the accusations as "baseless."

No official has said the October attack in France and the November wave across Europe are connected, and no group has claimed responsibility for the November 2 attacks. France has said EU officials are working on a response to the incidents, which European leaders discussed this week at a summit in Dublin dominated by the growing number of hybrid attacks across the continent.