Iran's hackers are going after real-world targets: a US town's water plant, Texas-bound tankers and European grocery fridges

Iranian hackers are increasingly going after physical infrastructure, including US water facilities, energy tankers and European grocery stores, as the war between the United States and Iran goes on, Iran International reports, citing The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal pointed to three cyberattacks since the summer that investigators suspect were linked to Iran. Operators at a water facility in a small Midwestern US town were locked out of their control panels. Networks aboard two energy tankers in the Atlantic headed for Texas were breached. And hundreds of refrigerators in European grocery stores were driven to 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cybersecurity officials and defense experts told the Journal that Iran is widening its targets and showing more willingness to use cyberattacks to cause real-world harm.

"What Iran is doing right now is learning from the last war," Yossi Karadi, head of Israel's National Cyber Directorate, told the Journal. "I always assume that my enemy in the next war won't be the same as the last one. It will be a better one."

Iran was long seen as a less sophisticated cyber threat than China, Russia and North Korea, but its recent attacks have raised alarm among specialists, according to the report.