Albanian President Bajram Begaj will convene the National Security Council tomorrow at 12:00.
Through an official announcement, the Presidency informs that the meeting of the National Security Council aims to analyze the current state of cybersecurity, challenges and threats the country faces in this regard.
The responsible institutions will inform the National Security Council about the measures taken to strengthen cyber defense, in implementation of the recommendations given by the meeting of the National Security Council, in October 2022 and January 2023.
Albania has been a target of a number of cyberattacks in recent years, with the frequent occurrence of such attacks highlighting the vulnerability of state cybersecurity. Shortly before the elections in Albania in April 2021, the voter database from Tirana was leaked, and the salary and license plate number database of over 600,000 citizens was also published.
The latest cyberattack was that of July 2022 when governmental portal e-Albania, that provides various digital services such as school registration, applications for personal documents, property rights registration, and business data registration, was disrupted.
The attack also involved the leakage of sensitive data that had previously been obtained from state servers. The majority of this data was published on HomeLand Justice website and a corresponding Telegram group.
The Albanian government informed the public that it was a sophisticated and coordinated cyberattack from outside the country. Prime Minister Edi Rama publicly attributed the cyberattack to the Iranian government in early September. Subsequently, the two countries severed diplomatic relations.
Iranian diplomats left the embassy in Tirana on September 8th, and prior to their departure, they burned letters and documentation in the embassy premises.
The cyberattacks against the Government of Albania were deemed as politically motivated, with actors connected to the Iranian government behind them, as a result of an analysis conducted by the American company Microsoft on September 8th, which extensively examined the attack on the state servers in Albania.
