Armenian Official Web Sites Subjected to Hacker Attacks

During the past two months, several Armenian web sites were targets of hacker attacks. Official sites were hacked including the government’s web site.

While trying to open some of them, users met messages by “Iraqi hackers” –such was the nickname of the trespassers who left their contacts and a warning. But Armenia accused Azerbaijani special services of hiring Internet criminal hackers to cripple Armenian access to the Internet.

In particular, the experts noted that after breaking a certain site, hackers usually followed two scenarios. First, they posted disinformation on the broken web site, the latter mostly were news sites or sites of state government bodies. The second scenario met by Armenian society was the changed content of web site when hackers posted written information or Ramil Safarov’s picture, the Azerbaijani army officer who ax-murdered an Armenian colleague during a 2004 NATO training course in Hungary.

Information security experts said these attacks were aimed at testing vulnerable spots in the Armenian virtual network. The attacks were also aimed at trying to divert attention from the problems of Azerbaijani society, including of the armed forces. Azerbaijan continually claims that its economy grows, the military training is improving, everything is perfect in the country, in contrast to Armenia, where everything is bad!!

The measures taken by the Armenian government against these attacks were not enough. For instant, a state-run Internet task force was created in April 2009 to watch Internet security, but government information technology consultant Garegin Chukaszian said the team can only "patch up" problems. After the new attacks a group of experts set up to protect Armenian web sites from the cracks of Azerbaijani hackers. 75 specialists and journalists expressed willingness to be involved in the group.

Obviously, Internet security is an important element of the country’s national security and Armenia's government should pay more attention to Internet security issues to face the "information war" imposed on Armenia by Azerbaijan.

Ara S. Ashjian

Yerevan, Armenia