Albania Was Hit by Cyberattacks. What it Can Learn From Estonia.

Falling Victim to Cyberattacks

"On 15^th July 2022, anyone looking to access e-Albania.al, the portal for digital government services in Albania, found that it was unavailable.  It had fallen victim to cyberattacks. The portal, which had been unveiled only months earlier in May, sought to move many government service provisions online, vaunting more than 1,200 new digitised services.  Albania’s digital transformation, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, was also an attempt to mitigate corruption that has plagued the country since the 1990s. What followed signalled completely uncharted territory for Albania, which is a relatively new democracy, still weeding out deception after decades of steadfast authoritarian rule. Albania is now at a crossroads.  The country has an immense opportunity to bolster the future cybersecurity of its entire digital transformation project through the decisions that it makes today. To do so, it can learn from Estonia, the small Baltic state of 1.3 million, which has been honing its digital governance structure, including electronic identification, e-services, and even online voting in national elections. Most importantly for Albania, Estonia has had its own experiences with major cyber incidents and has developed some of the world’s most advanced practices to prevent and respond to them," writes Logan Emily Carmichael, our Junior Research Fellow in E-Governance.

Continue to releasepeace.org site to read the whole article. It also discusses the communication aspect as well as the need for training experts and the general public.