প্রকাশ: 11/09/2022
Albania has suffered a renewed cyber-attack, the country's
interior ministry said on Saturday, blaming Iran which Tirana also accused of
an earlier assault on its digital systems.
"The national police's computer systems were hit Friday
by a cyberattack which, according to initial information, was committed by the
same actors who in July attacked the country's public and government service
systems," the ministry said in a statement.
"In order to neutralize the criminal act and secure the
systems," the authorities have shut down computer control systems at
seaports, airports and border posts, the statement said.
In a tweet, Prime Minister Edi Rama denounced "another
cyberattack (committed by) the same aggressors already condemned by Albania's
friendly countries and allies."
Albania blamed Iran for the July attack and on Wednesday cut
diplomatic ties over the affair.
The two countries have been bitter foes for years, since the
Balkan state began hosting members of the opposition People's Mujahedeen of
Iran, or Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), on its soil.
Rama on Wednesday accused Iran of directing a cyberattack
against Albanian institutions on July 15 in a bid to "paralyse public
services and hack data and electronic communications from the government
systems".
It was the first time Tirana spoke about the alleged attack.
"The Council of Ministers has decided on the severance
of diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran with immediate
effect," said Rama.
"The said attack failed its purpose. Damages may be
considered minimal compared to the goals of the aggressor. All systems came
back fully operational and there was no irreversible wiping of data."
The prime minister went on to say that Iranian diplomats and
embassy staff had 24 hours to leave the country.
Iranian denials
Iran rejected the accusation it was behind the cyberattack
as "baseless" and called Albania's decision to sever diplomatic ties
"an ill-considered and short-sighted action".
"Iran as one of the target countries of cyberattacks on
its critical infrastructure rejects and condemns any use of cyberspace as a
tool to attack the critical infrastructure of other countries," its
foreign ministry said.
The US announced sanctions Friday on Iran's Ministry of
Intelligence and Security and its minister Esmail Khatib over Tehran's alleged
involvement.
The Islamic republic has also been targeted by cyberattacks,
most notably in 2010 when the Stuxnet virus -- believed to have been engineered
by Israel and the US -- infected its nuclear program.
Albania agreed in 2013 to take in members of the MEK at the
request of Washington and the United Nations, with thousands settling in the
Balkan country over the years.
Following the collapse of its communist government in the
early 1990s, Albania has transformed into a steadfast ally of the United States
and the West, officially joining NATO in 2009.
The MEK backed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the 1979
revolution that ousted the shah but rapidly fell out with the new Islamic
authorities and embarked on a decades-long campaign to overthrow the regime.
The MEK regularly hosts summits in Albania that have long
attracted support from conservative US Republicans, including former vice
president Mike Pence, who delivered a keynote address at an event in June.
A month later, the group postponed another summit citing
unspecified security threats targeting the event.
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