Albania’s parliament and a telecommunications company operating in the country were the target of cyberattacks this week, according to the country’s cybersecurity agency. said in a report.
According to the agency, the attacks originated outside Albania and the country’s technical experts are “currently working to recover affected systems and analyze the tactics and techniques used by the threat actors involved in the attacks.”
Earlier this week, local media reported that during the attack on Parliament, hackers attempted to disrupt the infrastructure and delete data, but without success.
The attack has not been attributed to a specific threat actor and the Albanian Parliament did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.
On Monday, the Iran-linked hacker group known as Homeland Justice claimed responsibility for the cyberattack on the Albanian parliament, as well as two local telecommunications companies and the Albanian national carrier.
In a post on Telegram, the hackers claimed to have stolen data from targeted systems, warning their victims to “expect the worst.” The group’s claims could not be independently verified, and the targeted companies did not respond to a request for comment.
The attacks are possible reprisals against Albania, which is home to members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, in the Albanian county of Durrës – the hackers called their campaign “Destroy the Durres military camp.” .
In a report sent On Tuesday, PMOI spokesperson Ali Safavi told the Associated Press that reported cyberattacks in Albania “are not linked to the presence or activities” of PMOI members in the country.
Earlier in July, Albania suffered a major cyberattack attributed to Iran that forced the country to shut down access to online public services and other government websites. Homeland Justice hackers also claimed responsibility for this attack.
Researchers from Mandiant, who analysis the attack, said they did not have enough evidence to link the attack to this specific threat actor, but said they had “moderate confidence” that one or more Iran-linked groups were involved in the operation.
Two months after the attack, Albania severed diplomatic relations with Tehran in response to the attack, while the United States imposed punishments on Iran’s main intelligence agency.
“We will not tolerate Iran’s increasingly aggressive cyber activities targeting the United States or our allies and partners,” the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said in a statement.
In September, Albania reported that hackers linked to the Iranian government targeted computer systems used by the national police to track individuals entering and leaving the country. The attack prompted authorities to shut down computer control systems at border crossings and airports.
A spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry then denied that the country was involved in any attack targeting Albania, calling the accusations “baseless” and “unproven”.
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Daryna Antoniuk is a freelance journalist for Recorded Future News based in Ukraine. She writes about cybersecurity startups, cyberattacks in Eastern Europe, and the state of the Ukraine-Russia cyberwar. She was previously a tech journalist for Forbes Ukraine. His work has also been published in Sifted, The Kyiv Independent and The Kyiv Post.