Remarks by the President of the Republic, H.E.Mr. Bajram Begaj at the meeting of the National Security Council
Based on point 3, Article 168 of the Constitution of the Republic of Albania and Article 10 of Law no. 64/2014, “On the powers and authorities of the direction and strategic command of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Albania” as amended, I have called this meeting of the National Security Council: “The state of cyber security and the measures taken to strengthen cyber defense in the Republic of Albania”.
A year ago, we faced with very serious, complex, and sophisticated cyber-attacks undertaken, financed, and supported by certain government structures of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
These attacks aimed at destroying the digital infrastructure of the Republic of Albania and hindering the provision of online government services to citizens, aiming to promote instability.
Our institutions, NAIS and NAECCS, in cooperation with strategic partners and Microsoft, managed to discover, stop, and identify the actors who undertook these attacks, preventing them from realizing their full purpose.
The measures taken by our institutions were immediate and comprehensive.
They started with emergency protection and are now continuing with capacity-building, as well as ensuring sustainable cyber protection.
I highly appreciate the work done by the institutions, which in cooperation with strategic partners, the USA, the EU, NATO and other partner and allied countries, have done for the education, training and awareness of specialists, experts and all users who have access to technological and information systems, with a special focus on critical infrastructures and important information infrastructures.
The new law on cyber security and the national cyber security strategy will best serve the building of modern and technologically advanced capacities to strengthen cyber defense.
On the other hand, despite the measures taken, cyber threat actors, mainly supported and financed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, have expanded their activity.
Cyber-attacks have increased in number, but they have also become more sophisticated and complex, increasing the degree of difficulty in coping with them.
I have called this meeting today to take stock of the current state of cyber security, and to discuss the challenges and threats we are facing with.
In addition, almost a year after the devastating attacks, it is time to reflect on what we have done, how prepared we are to face potential attacks and where our efforts and investments should be focused to further strengthen cyber defense.
The challenges we are facing today are wide-ranging.
In today’s meeting, in addition to cyber security, we will also discuss other issues of importance to national security, which are mainly related to the threats coming from Iran, whether these are in the form of propaganda, diplomatic threats or hybrid.
To inform the National Security Council in more detail about the state of cyber security and the measures taken to prevent, neutralize and protect critical and important information infrastructures from cyber-attacks, I have invited the Director of the National Authority for Electronic Certification and Cyber Security (NAECCS), Mr. Igli Tafa, as well as the Director of the National Agency for Information Society (NAIS), Mrs. Mirlinda Karcanaj.