The NATO military alliance has confirmed that the Islamic Republic of Iran is behind the cyber attack on Albania. On September 8, through a statement, NATO strongly condemned the July cyber attack, saying that such attacks are intended to create instability and harm the security of NATO allies.

“NATO and allies support Albania in strengthening its cyber defense capabilities to withstand and respond to such malicious actions in the future,” NATO’s announcement said. The military alliance said that malicious actors want to damage critical infrastructure, interfere with members’ government services and obtain intelligence information and disrupt the military activities of NATO members. This NATO announcement comes as Iranian diplomats on Thursday left the building of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran and were expelled from the country, following the order of the Albanian Government to leave Albania due to the severance of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The decision to expel Iranian diplomats was announced by the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, after accusing Iran of “state aggression” against Albania for the cyber attack on government infrastructure and digital services during the month of July.

This is the first time a country has severed diplomatic relations with a country over cyber attacks and the first time a NATO member state has officially blamed Iran for staging a cyber attack.