Last week, reports about a synchronised criminal cyberattack struck Albania, which disrupted the workforce and shut down its government systems. According to reports, a chain of cybercriminal intrusions from abroad has hit the Albanian servers, particularly in the National Agency for Information Society. This sector oversees most of the Albanian government services.
A sector spokesperson published an advisory stating that they have been forced to shut down government systems until the cyberattacks are removed to address the malicious attacks. Unfortunately for the Albanian citizens, the country’s government services were down starting last Monday due to the constant cyberattack.
The council ministers stated in a press release that Albania is still experiencing these massive surges of cyberattacks. Moreover, they were shocked by these campaigns since they had not encountered such instances before.
They also indicated that they must temporarily shut down all online services and other government websites to mitigate the effects of the threat attacks.
Additionally, most of the office services for the Albanians were hindered by the attack, leaving only several essential services that the people needed to accomplish. Online tax filing is one of the services that remain unaffected by the campaigns. The citizens were able to file their taxes online.
The current opposition party in Albania expressed its dismay at the situation in their country.
The former Prime Minister and the head of the current opposition party in Albania expressed their disappointment and were very critical of the stand against cybercrime. Furthermore, the previous PM also emphasised the current administration’s incompetence in addressing the situation after stating that the leaders have not yet taken any initiatives to counteract the attacks.
The current problem was about cyberspace, which was the main point of the opposition since the current government has not yet come up with professional policing against cybercrime.
For the government’s defence, the Microsoft Jones Group International team has helped them to lessen the impact of the attacks to restore its standard daily operations.
Experts stated Albania should start manifesting organised teams to fend off such attacks. One of the reasons is that the country also suffered a different attack last December, which caused the data exposure of more than 600,000 individuals.
