A cyberattack that last month temporarily shut down numerous Albanian government digital services and Web sites was likely the work of pro-Iranian hackers seeking to disrupt a planned conference by an Iranian opposition group in Albania, a leading US cybersecurity firm said on Thursday.
In its report, Virginia-based Mandiant expressed “moderate confidence” that the attackers were acting in support of Tehran’s efforts to persecute dissident, saying its findings were based on the attack’s timing, the content of a social media channel used to claim responsibility and similarities in software code used with malware long used to target Persian and Arabic speakers.
The conference, scheduled for July 23 and 24 by the Iranian dissident group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), was canceled following warnings from local authorities of a possible terrorist threat.
About 3,000 Iranian dissidents from the group live at Ashraf 3 camp in Manez, 30km west of Albania’s capital, Tirana.
The Free Iran World Summit was to have been held at the camp with US lawmakers among the invitees.
A group calling itself “HomeLand Justice” claimed credit for the cyberattack, which used ransomware to scramble data.
Ransomware is best known for its use in for-profit criminal extortion, but is being increasingly wielded for political ends, particularly by Iran.
The claim came on a Telegram channel that also posted documents purported to be Albanian residence permits of MEK members.
A video of the ransomware being activated was also posted.
The channel accused the Albanian government of corruption, using a hashtag referring to the dissident group.
The government said the hackers’ method was identical with attacks last year in other NATO states including Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Belgium.
“This activity poses an active threat to public and private organizations in other NATO member states,” Mandiant said. “As negotiations surrounding the Iran nuclear deal continue to stall, this activity indicates Iran may feel less restraint in conducting cybernetwork attack operations going forward.”
The report came shortly after Iran, the US and the EU announced a resumption of talks to revive a 2015 deal that limited Tehran’s nuclear program before Washington walked away from it under former US president Donald Trump.
On Thursday, the White House said that time is getting “very short” for Iran to accept a return to the international deal.
Additional reporting by AFP
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
RSS