News broke last week of a cyberattack on the Romanian Land Registry. The attacker initially deployed ransomware in an extortion attempt, but after failing to achieve his payout has instead deleted the data and online backups.
The attack is claimed by ByteToBreach, who may have also been behind a wider spate of attacks on government systems across Europe in the last few years including Sweden, Lithuania and Slovakia.
Unsurprisingly, the attack has paralyzed the ability of the land registry to function; Notaries cannot record new transactions while citizens can’t obtain proof of ownership or detailed land records. On average, between 150,000 and 170,000 residential real estate units are sold annually across the country, making the current freeze a significant one.
The website is now running, with a message apologizing to visitors for the inconvenience and stating that they are working on rebuilding the systems from scratch. While for now it is not up and running, the press release claims their outlook is hopeful.
Lessons in redundancy
While ByteToBreach has reportedly claimed they corrupted backup data as well to prevent restores, the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Advertising (ANCPI) claims otherwise.
“Contrary to some information appearing in the public space, at the time of the incident, the ANCPI had several locations designated for storing backup copies, a measure that ensures redundancy and the possibility of data restoration in the event of cybersecurity incidents,” the press release says.
If this bears out, it’s a lesson in resilience and redundancy; with an offline copy remaining untouched by virtue of being inaccessible, the systems can be brought back into being. The only question is how long this will take, and what effects the delay will have on those impatiently waiting for ANCPI systems to come back online.
Your Data in Your hands – With TECH-ARROW
by Matúš Koronthály
Image generated by Canva
