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The Assembly of the Republic of Albania and telecom company One Albania have been targeted by cyber attacks, the country’s National Authority for Electronic Certification and Cyber Security (AKCESK) revealed this week.
“These infrastructures, under the legislation in force, are not currently classified as critical or important information infrastructure,” AKCESK said.
One Albania, which has nearly 1.5 million subscribers, said in a Facebook post on December 25 that it had handled the security incident without any issues and that its services, including mobile, landline, and IPTV, remained unaffected.
AKCESK further noted that the intrusions did not originate from Albanian IP addresses, adding it managed to “identify potential cases in real-time.”
The agency also said that it has been focusing its efforts on identifying the source of the attacks, recovering compromised systems, and implementing security measures to prevent such incidents from happening again in the future.
What’s more, AKCESK said the incident has prompted it to review and strengthen its cybersecurity strategies.
The exact scale and scope of the attacks are currently not known, but an Iranian hacker group called Homeland Justice claimed responsibility on its Telegram channel, alongside stating that it had hacked flag carrier airline Air Albania.
In a message shared on its website on December 24, the outfit said it is “back to destroy supporters of terrorists,” alongside adding the following tags: #albania, #albaniahack, #CyberAttacks, #mek, #MKO, #ncri, #NLA, #pmoi, #Terrorists.
The development comes more than a year after Albanian government services were targeted by destructive cyber attacks in mid-July 2022.
Homeland Justice claimed responsibility for those attacks as well. The development subsequently prompted the U.S. government to sanction Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and its Minister of Intelligence, Esmail Khatib, for engaging in cyber-enabled activities against the U.S. and its allies.