Hackers claim to have stolen government data in attack on Romania's land registry

Romania's National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Advertising (ANCPI) has confirmed that its IT systems were targeted in a cyberattack that disrupted access to the country's land registry, affecting property registration and real estate transactions, AzerNEWS reports.

According to reports, the attacker allegedly launched the ransomware attack after an extortion attempt failed. Before deploying the malware, the hacker reportedly breached the agency's systems and mocked the institution on an online hacking forum.

Authorities initially attributed the outage to technical problems but later acknowledged that the disruption was caused by a cyberattack.

The attacker also claimed to have stolen sensitive data, including citizens' information, internal source code, and copies of key government systems before encrypting the agency's infrastructure with ransomware.

The incident temporarily disrupted access to Romania's property records, complicating land registration procedures and real estate transactions while authorities worked to restore affected systems and assess the extent of the breach.