Cyber attacks in Albania, FBI publishes the report: Hackers had access 14 months ago

The FBI and the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have released a report detailing the cyber attacks against Albania in July and September.

According to them, the Iranian hackers had initial access 14 months before carrying out the cyber attack. During this period, they periodically accessed and used the content of the e-mail.

“In July 2022, Iranian state cyber actors identified as HomeLand Justice launched a devastating cyber attack against the Government of Albania, which rendered websites and services unavailable. An FBI investigation shows that Iranian state cyber actors gained initial access to the victim’s network approximately 14 months before launching the devastating cyber attack, which included a ransomware-type file encoder and disk-wiping malware. The actors maintained continuous access to the network for approximately one year, periodically accessing and exploiting the email content,” the FBI report said.

Throughout the period May-June 2022, Iranian hackers have sought to reveal various information and steal credentials from Albanian government networks.

In July, they released “ransomware” on the networks leaving an anti-MEK message on the desktop. “When network defenders identified and began responding to ransomware activity, cyber actors deployed a version of the devastating ZeroCleare malware,” the report said.

According to the FBI and CISA, in June 2022 Homeland Justice created a website and several different social media profiles posting anti-MEK messages. On July 18, HomeLand Justice takes responsibility for the cyber attacks on the infrastructure of the Albanian government. On July 23, they posted a video of the cyber attack on their website./JAVANEWS