‘Homeland Justice’, is it a whole network of Iranian hackers with real threats to the Government? – The cyber security giant “Mandiant” explains it to Albanian Post.

The group already publicly known in Albania as “Homeland Justice”, self-proclaimed as the authors of the cyber-attack undertaken against the government websites and the e-Albania portal, for days have started publishing a series of official documents, which include emails between departments, e-mail of the Prime Minister, or even exchange of information with Albanian diplomatic headquarters abroad.

Despite this, the nature of the documents published so far has been very negligible and without specific weight.

Mostly, it is a matter of correspondence with citizens and the institutions themselves, for issues without any specific implications of a governmental nature.

For several weeks, Albanian Post has been in constant communication with the international cyber security company, Mandiant, after the latter published a report on the attack that took place in Albania, concluding that are very high chances that it came from Iran.

Seeing the activity and nature of the “Homeland Justice” group on online sites or social media such as Twitter first and then Telegram, the journalist of the Albanian Post continued to consult with Mandiant on the nature of the group and the real possibilities for them to dispose of very important or secret State documents.

According to Alice Revelli, senior manager and information and operations analyst, as well as Emiel Haeghebart, threat intelligence analyst, it is impossible to fully independently verify how much data has been stolen from government servers.

But what can be said is that the way the group is acting is among the most classic cases, as information of very little importance is being published at the moment and this is the way to put pressure on the Government, keeping documents with more value.

“We have seen other times groups of hacktivists, who publish stolen data in time”, the two cyber security experts told to Albanian Post. “These groups don’t necessarily release all the data they have at once, but spread it over different periods of time.”

According to them, this happens because in this way, they maximize the attention to their cause.

And in the Mandiant report, it was written that the highest probability is that the people who carried out the attack wanted to attack the group of Mojahedin e Khalq (MEK) who are currently sheltering in Manza, an Albanian city nearby Durrës.

This group is also known as the Iranian opposition dissidents, and Tehran itself is seeking their return to the homeland for trial over a series of alleged crimes.

Moreover, the “Homeland Justice” group itself, in their publications, targets MEK exponents and despite the fact that there is no technical evidence to say for sure that they are behind the attack, for Mandiant it is very likely that “Homeland Justice” has carried out the aggression.

Mandiant’s experts support it based on the fact that the activity of the hacker group, the time and manner of the posts, as well as their subject matter, fully match the data they have on the cyber-attack in Albania.

They even add that some fronts may have united under the banner of “Homeland Justice”, to cooperate in support of Iran’s interests, which have been revealed many times publicly.

But the real question asked by the public is one: Is it possible that this group really possesses important documents of national interest?

It is more than possible, according to Mandiant, but they can independently confirm or deny this.

However, they clearly say that the style of publishing data is very well known in the world of cyber security, so it is more than possible that “Homeland Justice” has relevant information and data of the Government.

Looking at the pace of hackers in recent days, it has been noticed that mostly every week, new data is published, based on what they call “the will of the people”.

In other words, an online poll, which they conduct on their site.

However, with the arrival of experts from the US National Bureau of Investigation (FBI), it is expected that other data will be spread and made public about the attack, behind which, every day, it is proven that Iran is hiding…even though not officially.