TIRANA, Aug. 5, 2022 – A major cyberattack on Albania’s government and its online services for citizens was likely conducted by an Iranian threat actor, according to a report by Mandaint, a large U.S. cyber security company.
The attack caused a significant disruption to the Albanian government’s networks in mid-July 2022, and came likely in retaliation for a planned hosting an Iranian opposition group summit in Albania, the report noted.
In its report, the company expressed “moderate confidence” that the attackers had acted in support of Tehran based on several factors: timing, content published on a social media channel used to claim responsibility for the attacks of this nature and similarities to the virus program code that has long been used to target Farsi and Arabic speakers.
Albania’s government has now fully restored online services to citizens following the massive attack on Albanian state digital infrastructure that forced the government to take its main citizen services portal, e-Albania, offline for days.
In a statement, the government explained that it was a “complex and large-scale attack” with methods similar to a number of recent cyber attacks on government and private domains in other European countries.
