(Tirana) Albania announced on Saturday that it had been targeted by a new cyberattack, which affected its police, again accusing Tehran, three days after Tirana’s decision to sever diplomatic relations with Iran, held responsible for a “massive” computer attack in July.
Posted at 12:26 p.m.
“The National Police’s computer systems were hit on Friday by a cyberattack which, according to initial information, was carried out by the same actors who attacked the country’s public and government service systems in July,” it read. in a statement from the Albanian Interior Ministry.
“In order to neutralize the criminal act and secure the systems”, the authorities have decommissioned the computer control systems in the seaports, airports and border crossings, according to the same source.
“The systems will be out of service until the risk is completely removed,” added the ministry, which clarified that passenger screening was done manually.
In a tweet, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, whose country is a member of NATO, denounced “another cyberattack (committed by) the same aggressors already condemned by friendly countries and allies of Albania”.
US sanctions
After the announcement by Tirana, on September 7, that a massive cyberattack had been orchestrated in July by Iran against the digital infrastructures of the Albanian government, the United States announced on Friday new sanctions against Tehran, targeting in particular the ministry Iranian Intelligence.
“We will not tolerate Iran’s increasingly aggressive cyber activities that target the United States and its allies and partners,” Treasury Under Secretary Brian Nelson said in a statement.
Iran on Saturday strongly condemned the US sanctions, called the cyberattack accusations “unfounded” and Tirana’s severance of diplomatic relations a “misguided and reckless” action.
“America’s immediate support for the Albanian government’s false accusation […] shows that the designer of this scenario is not Albania but the US government,” Iranian Intelligence Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a statement.
Albania said on Wednesday that on July 15 it had suffered a “heavy cyberattack against the government’s digital infrastructure aimed at destroying them”, but which “failed”.
In the process, his government had given 24 hours to the diplomatic, administrative technical and security staff of the Iranian embassy to leave.
NATO for its part condemned “malicious acts which aim to destabilize an ally and disrupt the daily lives of its citizens”, promising to help Albania prepare for possible attacks of the same nature in the future. .
Land of welcome for Iranian opponents
Mr. Kanani further criticized the United States for having “given full support to a terrorist sect”, an allusion to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), an exile movement banned in Iran.
Since 2013, Albania has welcomed on its soil, at the request of the United States and the UN, members of this movement made up of fierce opponents of the Iranian regime.
The mujahideen regularly organize summits in a city they built not far from Tirana and which regularly hosts several thousand people.
But this year, the meeting scheduled for July had been postponed by the PMOI “for security reasons” and “on the recommendation of the Albanian government […] due to terrorist threats and conspiracies”.
The PMOI supported Ayatollah Khomeini during the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran. But the group had been declared outlaw by Tehran in 1981, the year it was accused of a bomb attack that killed 74 people, including the number two of the regime.
The mujahideen have never claimed responsibility for this attack, unlike others.