JERUSALEM: Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama arrived in Israel on Sunday for an official visit that will include a meeting with Israeli cyber defense officials, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.
Rama’s three-day visit came a month after Albania severed diplomatic ties with Iran over a July cyberattack that targeted Albanian governmental websites and services.
After Albania cut ties, a second cyberattack from the same Iranian source hit an information system that records Albanian border entries and exits, causing delays for travelers.
Israel and Iran have waged a more than decade-long shadow war across the region and in cyberspace.
Rama met with Israel’s caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, whose office said the two discussed bilateral ties and “overcoming common challenges faced by the two countries, with an emphasis on the Iranian threat,” and proposed cyber defense cooperation.
“Israel will assist as much as possible in the effort against Iran. We see this as a national interest and a historical obligation,” Lapid said.
The Foreign Ministry said that Rama would meet with the head of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, the country’s main cybersecurity body. The ministry said Rama would also meet with Israel’s President Isaac Herzog and other officials.
Lapid’s remarks came as Iran’s atomic energy organization said that an email server belonging to one of its subsidiaries had been hacked from a foreign country and information published online.
The hack comes as Iran continues to face nationwide unrest first sparked by the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman in police custody for allegedly not adhering to the country’s strict Islamic dress code.
On Sunday, Iran’s leading teachers’ association reported that sit-ins canceled classes at multiple schools across the country in protest over the government’s crackdown on student protesters.
The protests first focused on Iran’s state-mandated hijab, or headscarf, for women but transformed into one of the most serious challenges to the country’s ruling clerics.
Protesters have clashed with police and even called for the downfall of the regime itself.
An Iranian hacking group, Black Reward, said in a statement published on Twitter that it had released hacked information relating to Iranian nuclear activities, declaring the action an act of support for protesters in Iran.
Their statement ended with the words “In the name of Mahsa Amini and for women, life, freedom” — a show of support for protests ignited by her death in the custody of morality police last month.
Black Reward said the information released included “management and operational schedules of different parts of Bushehr power plant,” passports and visas of Iranian and Russian specialists working there, and “atomic Black Reward, in a statement published on Oct. 21, had threatened to release hacked information in 24 hours unless the authorities released political prisoners and people arrested during the unrest.
Talks between world powers and Iran aimed at reviving its 2015 nuclear deal are at a standstill, with the US saying on Oct. 12 that Tehran had shown little interest in reviving the pact.
