A cyberattack has wiped Romania's entire national land registry database and brought the country's real estate market to a standstill for a week, blocking property transactions, notarizations, and mortgage approvals.
The breach, carried out after a failed extortion attempt against the National Agency for Cadastre and Land Registration (ANCPI), was executed by an individual who exploited weak employee passwords such as 'passw0rd' to access the system. The attacker deleted stored records, manipulated online backups, and is now offering the stolen data for sale on the darknet. Cybersecurity firm KELA has identified the suspect as Zakaria Mahdjoub, an Algerian national operating under the alias ByteToBreach.
The ANCPI says it is rebuilding its IT infrastructure and working to restore services using offline backups. The disruption risks additional costs for homebuyers ahead of a planned value-added tax increase on new apartments from 9 to 21 percent on Aug. 1.