Romania: hacker deleted the Land Registry

After a failed extortion attempt, a hacker deleted the entire Romanian land registry database. This reported on Monday by the online portal Risky Business. According to the publication, the attacker first gained access to the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Advertising ANCPI (Agenția Națională de Cadastru și Publicitate Imobiliară), the country's cadastral authority, and later attempted to sell the stolen data on specialized online forums.

As Risky Business reported, citing anonymous sources, the hacker gained access to ANCPI's database with valid credentials and explored internal systems. After initially failing to extort money, he eventually deleted all systems and backups, according to his statements.

See more articles from iGuRu.gr when you search for news on Google.

iGuRu.gr preferred source

The Romanian Land Registry initially blamed technical problems, but was later forced to admit that it had been the victim of a cyberattack. The incident was made public on July 14. A day later, some stolen ANCPI data was being sold on a related online forum, along with employee access data, internal documents and details of the authority’s network.

The deletion of the cadastral database, in turn, has brought the entire Romanian real estate market to a standstill, according to Risky Business. The authority’s official apps and websites have been taken down by the cyberattack. Notaries are currently unable to certify new transactions, and citizens are unable to retrieve proof of ownership or detailed cadastral extracts.

Meanwhile, a cybersecurity firm has identified the criminals behind the cyberattack. The stolen data was allegedly posted by an account called “ByteToBreach.” Earlier this year, this same account was reported to have infiltrated the Swedish e-government portal and possibly several government registries in Eastern Europe, including Slovakia, Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania.

Cybersecurity firm KELA suspects that criminal Zakaria Mahdjoub from Oran (Algeria) is behind “ByteToBreach.” According to Risky Business, experts describe him as a “technically skilled cybercriminal who sells sensitive data from airlines, banks, and governments.”

newsbot

Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.