Video message of Prime Minister Edi Rama, regarding the decision of the Albanian government, as a response to the act of serious cyber attack against the digital infrastructure of the Government of the Republic of Albania

Dear fellow citizens!

Last July 15, our country became the object of a serious cyber attack, which had as its objective the destruction of the digital infrastructure of the Government of the Republic of Albania, the paralyzing of public services, as well as the theft of data and electronic communications from the systems governmental. The attack did not achieve its goal. Compared to the aggressor’s objectives, the damage may be considered minor. All systems were restored and nothing was irretrievably lost.

For weeks, they worked in parallel, day and night, either to restore all systems to work, or for the in-depth investigation to find the aggressor. In cooperation with specialized partner agencies of digital anti-terror, which brought their teams to Tirana, it was possible to first discover, without any shadow of doubt, that the July 15 attack on Albania was not an operation by individuals or independent groups in the world of organized cyber crime, but a state aggression. The in-depth investigation provided us with irrefutable evidence that the cyber aggression against our country has been orchestrated and sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has engaged four groups for the attack on Albania. Among them, one of the most notorious groups of international cyber terrorism, author or co-author of previous cyber attacks on Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Emirates, Kuwait and Cyprus.

We have informed our strategic allies, NATO partner countries and several other friendly countries, with whom we have also shared the irrefutable results of the investigation that proves the source of the aggression against our country.

Based on the above, the Council of Ministers has decided with immediate effect the termination of diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. This decision was made known in an official note to the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which was requested to leave the territory of the Republic of Albania within 24 hours of all diplomatic and technical-administrative personnel, including security personnel.

This extreme measure, not at all desired but completely forced, is in full proportion to the seriousness and dangerousness of the cyber attack, which threatened to paralyze public services, delete systems and steal state data, steal electronic communications within the government system and fueling insecurity and chaos in the country.
The failure of this massive attack on our country, thanks to the resistance of the systems we set up and the help of the special groups that joined us in this war, is not the end of the cyber threat, but simply proof that Albania has now also entered the map thanks to digital development of the war on cyber security. But the good news is that we know what we have to do and how we have to do it so that no one can touch us, just as we know that we will do the right things right because we have the right partners.

Thank you!