Trust is the foundation of every real estate transaction.
When a property is sold, purchased, transferred or financed, the various parties involved must be able to rely on accurate, accessible and legally reliable information. Registration in the land register makes it possible, in particular, to establish the ownership rights, easements and real estate liens associated with each property.

However, the recent cyberattack targeting the Romanian authority responsible for cadastre and land registration is a reminder that, in the digital age, legal certainty also depends on the availability and resilience of IT systems.

Without giving in to alarmism, this event deserves the attention of property owners, buyers and professionals in the Swiss real estate market.


What Actually Happened in Romania
Romania’s National Agency for Cadastre and Land Registration, the ANCPI, confirmed that it had been targeted by a cybersecurity incident that required certain systems to be isolated and several digital services to be temporarily suspended.

This unavailability, which was still ongoing at the time this article was written, inevitably complicated the work of individuals and professionals who rely on these applications to complete land-registration and real estate procedures.

Some articles and online posts claimed that Romania’s entire land register had been deleted by a hacker. However, this account requires substantial qualification. In its official update on the cybersecurity incident, the ANCPI stated that, following the checks carried out, its technical and legal databases had not been affected. The institution also indicated that the alarming information circulating publicly did not come from official sources and did not reflect the actual status of the investigation.

Nevertheless, the Romanian authorities had to undertake an extensive process of securing and checking the systems and gradually restoring the applications. The incident was therefore very real, as was the continued unavailability of the services at the time this article was written. However, the permanent loss of all land-registry data has not been confirmed by the official source.

This distinction is essential. It allows the seriousness of a cyberattack to be assessed without turning a service outage into the irreversible loss of all property rights.


Why Is a Land Register So Important?
A land register is not merely an administrative database. It provides an official record of rights relating to real property. In particular, it makes it possible to identify owners, register certain real estate liens and make rights attached to properties enforceable against third parties.

Its proper operation is essential to numerous transactions and procedures, including:

• the sale or purchase of an apartment, chalet or plot of land;
• the creation of a mortgage;
• the registration or amendment of an easement;
• the subdivision of a parcel of land;
• the establishment of condominium ownership;
• the verification of a property’s legal status.

When a computerised land-registration system becomes temporarily inaccessible, the consequences quickly extend beyond the technical sphere. Signings may be postponed, financing applications delayed and certain formalities suspended until the affected services have been restored.

Real estate cybersecurity must therefore be regarded as an integral component of transaction security.


How Is the Land Register Organised in Switzerland?
It should first be noted that Switzerland does not have a single, centralised land-registry database covering the entire country. The Confederation exercises overarching supervision of the land register, while the cantons are responsible for establishing the competent offices, organising the relevant districts and maintaining the registers. In most cantons, these registers are now maintained using systems that are either partially or fully computerised.

The Federal Office of Justice describes this division of responsibilities on its webpage concerning the organisation of the land register in Switzerland. This cantonal structure distinguishes the Swiss system from that of a country with a fully centralised national register. However, it does not mean that a cyberattack would be impossible or necessarily without consequences.

Computerisation improves the speed, traceability and efficiency of procedures. At the same time, it creates greater dependence on IT infrastructure, networks, authentication systems and backup procedures.

The reliability of the Swiss land register therefore rests on several complementary elements: a robust legal framework, rigorous institutional organisation, secure IT systems and a proven ability to maintain or restore services following an incident.


Can a Cyberattack Call Property Ownership into Question?
The unavailability of an IT system does not automatically mean that property owners lose their rights. A distinction must be made between temporary access to a system, the integrity of the data it contains and the legal effects of land-register entries.

A cyberattack may temporarily prevent information from being consulted or new transactions from being processed. It may also require extensive checks before applications can be brought back into service. However, this does not mean that property rights disappear instantly.

The Romanian situation illustrates this distinction precisely: the services were temporarily made unavailable so that the systems could be isolated, vulnerabilities addressed and data integrity protected. For participants in the real estate market, the main issues are therefore service continuity, the preservation of information and the ability to verify and then restore systems rapidly.


Offline Backups: An Essential Element of Resilience
No connected system can be considered entirely invulnerable. Prevention remains essential, but a serious cybersecurity strategy must also anticipate the possibility that an incident may nevertheless occur. It must then be possible to isolate the affected environments, identify the source of the attack, preserve the data and restore services under controlled conditions.

Among the most important measures are backups that are isolated from the network.

In its recommendations regarding the IT protection of public authorities, the Federal Office for Cybersecurity advises, in particular:

• establishing a regular backup process and following it systematically;
• retaining an additional offline and off-site copy;
• keeping previous versions for several months;
• periodically testing the restoration of backups.

A backup is only truly useful if it remains inaccessible to attackers and if its restoration has been tested under real-world conditions. A copy that remains permanently connected to the network could be encrypted, altered or deleted at the same time as the primary data.

Resilience therefore depends not only on the frequency of backups, but also on their technical separation, their long-term retention and the ability of teams to restore them rapidly.


Let Us Hope This Never Happens in Switzerland
The Romanian incident is a useful reminder for all countries whose administrative infrastructure is extensively digitalised. However, without official information, it would be excessive to claim that the Swiss authorities immediately adopted new measures in response to this specific event. It is more accurate to recall that Switzerland already has specialised authorities, supervisory rules and concrete recommendations regarding backups and IT continuity.

It is also reasonable to expect the competent bodies to examine incidents that occur abroad and draw the necessary lessons from them. In cybersecurity, vigilance must be constant: procedures must be reassessed, backups performed regularly and recovery plans tested before a crisis occurs.

The Romanian incident should therefore increase the attention paid to retaining offline copies, renewing them frequently and ensuring that land-registry data can be restored within controlled time frames.

Let us hope that a comparable attack never disrupts land-registry services in Switzerland. Experience shows, however, that the best guarantee does not lie in believing that one is safe from such an event. It lies in anticipation, preparation and the ability to restore essential functions rapidly.


An Issue Affecting the Entire Real Estate Market
The security of a transaction does not depend solely on the value of the property, the quality of the contract or the financing granted by a bank. It also depends on the reliability of the institutions and data that establish the rights attached to each property.

For a real estate agency, monitoring these developments does not mean taking the place of public authorities, notaries or cybersecurity specialists. It simply means understanding the changes that are gradually influencing the profession and the security of transactions carried out on behalf of clients. Specialising in real estate brokerage and rentals in Crans-Montana and the surrounding area, ImmoCrans SA – Barras & Partners SA closely monitors legal, economic and technological developments that may affect the Swiss real estate market.

In a sector built on discretion, accuracy and trust, data protection and the continuity of public services have become issues affecting every property owner, every buyer and every professional.