Albania cuts diplomatic relations with Iran due to cyber attack  

In its defense the US

Albania has ordered its diplomatic corps in Iran to leave the country, while giving Iranian diplomats 24 hours to leave Albania, accusing Iran of orchestrating a large-scale cyber attack on the country’s infrastructure. The Prime Minister, Edi Rama, announced that the investigation revealed “ hard evidence ” that Iran hired four hacker groups to attack Albania on July 15. Hackers tried to paralyze public services, steal and delete government data and cause chaos.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry called the accusations “ baseless ” and condemned the decision to expel its diplomats, while raising suspicions that “third parties” were involved in the accusations, pointing the finger at the US.

The US strongly condemned the cyber attack on the NATO ally and emphasized that Iran will be held accountable for its actions, which endangered Albania’s security.

Relations between Tirana and Tehran have taken a turn for the worse since Albania offered asylum to thousands of Iranian dissidents. The government’s decision to cut off diplomatic relations ” is commensurate with the seriousness and danger posed by the cyberattack .”

The goal of the hackers was to destroy the digital infrastructure of the government of Albania, as well as to steal data and electronic communications between government systems. The attack failed. All systems returned to normal operation and no irreversible data damage occurred. – Edi Rama