The Municipality of Tirana said on Thursday it had suspended the registration process for children in public kindergartens after a cyberattack took its website offline.
In an official statement, the municipality confirmed that a server malfunction had made the application platform for nursery and kindergarten registration — e-femijet.tirana.al — temporarily inaccessible. The issue followed a cyberattack claimed by the Iranian hacking group Homeland Justice, the same network behind the 2022 major cyberattack on Albania’s government services.
In a post on the Telegram messaging app, Homeland Justice took responsibility for the breach, linking it to Albania’s continued support for the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group hosted in Albania since 2013.
“We warned you to expel the MEK terrorists from Albanian territory. Instead, you granted them legal refugee status, issued ID cards and passports, and facilitated their movement,” the hackers wrote, adding that MEK members use what they claimed were “forged identity cards” to travel. The group accused Albania of violating agreements with the German development agency GIZ by granting asylum to MEK members.
The hackers said they not only brought down Tirana’s website but also extracted data and erased its servers. Their message concluded by blaming Albanian leaders for the consequences, stating, “Today, they are being punished for their actions.”
The municipality said it would notify the public once the platform is restored and application deadlines are extended accordingly.