Romania’s real estate market still reeling from major cyberattack against Land Registration Agency

Romania’s National Agency for Cadastre and Land Registration (ANCPI) was targeted by a cyberattack that took the e-Terra system offline and blocked real estate transactions nationwide starting on July 14. Many such transactions would have taken place, since VAT for new homes increases from 9% to 21% from August 1 onwards. However, the institution said on Monday, July 20, that its databases were not affected.

Last week, ANCPI said that the problems with its systems were only technical in nature, but then publicly acknowledged that it had been targeted by a hacker who succeeded in obtaining its data. The perpetrator had ample openings, as ANCPI had not invested in security. According to Ziarul Financiar, the institution spent RON 710 million (EUR 135 million) on digitalization in the last 20 years, but only 0.2% of that, some RON 1.6 million (EUR 305,000), was allocated to cybersecurity. 

At the moment, the ANCPI’s email addresses cannot be accessed, and the e-Terra cadastre and land registry application is non-functional for citizens, notaries, lawyers, or cadastral specialists. Without the e-Terra system, a land registry extract can no longer be issued. As a result, real estate transactions in the country have been put on hold while authorities work to solve the problem.

The story does not end there, as the ANCPI data leak was put up for sale on July 15, according to Public Record.

However, on Monday, July 20, ANCPI announced that the technical and legal databases were not affected by the cyberattack carried out last week. According to a statement published by ANCPI on its website, the process of migrating ANCPI applications to the Government Cloud has begun, coordinated by specialists from the Special Telecommunications Service, or STS. The process is estimated to be completed on July 22. Subsequently, the applications and data will be verified by the authorized institutions, which will prepare a report regarding the condition of the systems and any additional measures required, according to the cited source.

“Depending on the conclusions of this report, ANCPI will be able to communicate the estimated deadline for the resumption of application functionality. The restoration of these applications will be carried out in stages, depending on operational priorities,” ANCPI stated.

The institution also said that “the information circulating in the public space regarding the alleged consequences of the cyberattack does not come from official sources and does not reflect reality or the current stage of the investigations.”

Romania’s interim economy minister, Irineu Darău, told Digi24 that ANCPI could have carried out much more intensive prevention work to prevent such attacks. “We must consider how this period has affected potential buyers, and we will have to find solutions either at the government level or at the Parliament level,” he said, avoiding saying whether future transactions would benefit from the reduced 9% VAT as well.

Romania’s dedicated cybersecurity body, the National Cyber Security Directorate (DNSC), said it had warned ANCPI about the issues with its poor cybersecurity. In an interview with G4Media, the head of DNSC, Dan Cîmpean, stated that the cyberattack on the IT infrastructure of the National Agency for Cadastre and Land Registration was not complex and could have been prevented. The specialist explained that ByteToBreach, which posted several announcements offering for sale the data obtained following the attack, exploited “vulnerabilities that we had notified them about quite recently.”

radu@romania-insider.com

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