Albania’s National Electronic Certification and Cyber Security Agency (AKCESK) revealed this week that the Parliament of the Republic of Albania and telecommunications company One Albania had been targeted by cyberattacks.
“This infrastructure is not currently classified as critical or important information infrastructure under current legislation,” AKCESK said.
One Albania, which has nearly 1.5 million users, said in a Facebook post on December 25 that it had dealt with the security incident without any issues and that services including mobile, landline and IPTV had not been affected.
AKCESK further noted that the intrusion did not originate from Albanian IP addresses, adding that it managed to “identify potential cases in real time.”
The agency also said it has been working to identify the source of the attack, restore compromised systems and implement security measures to prevent such an incident from happening again.
What’s more, AKCESK said the incident prompted it to review and strengthen its cybersecurity strategy.
The exact scale and scope of the attack is unclear, but an Iranian hacker group called Homeland Justice claimed responsibility for the attack on its Telegram channel and said it had hacked Air Albania.
In a message shared on its website on December 24, the group said it would “return to destroy the supporters of terrorists,” adding the following hashtags: #albania, #albaniahack, #CyberAttacks, #mek, #MKO , #ncri, #NLA, #pmoi, #Terrorists.
This development comes more than a year after a devastating cyber attack on Albanian government services in mid-July 2022.
Homeland Justice also claimed responsibility for the attacks. This development subsequently prompted the US government to sanction Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and its Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib for their involvement in cyber activities targeting the United States and its allies.
