A Massive Cyber Attack Hit in Georgia – Thousand of Websites and National TV Channels Hacked

Georgia Hit with the biggest cyberattack in their history, as a result, their National TV Channels and thousands of Websites have been defaced.

Affected websites are displaying with the photo of former Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili with a quote “I’ll be back”. Mikheil Saakashvili was in power in Georgia between 2004 and 2013, serving two terms as president.

The affected websites including the president, courts, media, including the website of the administration of the President of Georgia. so far the group or person behind the attack is unclear.

According to the local media report, there are 15,000 websites hosted on the compromised server which is managed by the Proservice, a hosting service provider in Georgia.

It was the largest cyber attack since 2008, the team who is behind the scene, and working for the mitigation believed that the attack initiated from Russia.

“One of the targets of the attack is a server owned by Proservice, which hosts websites of state agencies, the private sector, and media organizations. As a result of the attack, about 15,000 web pages located on the servers of the company were broken.” Aljazeera Reported.

Attackers specifically targetted more than 20,000 websites including non-government organizations and private companies.

“Imedi and Maestro have allegedly carried out a cyberattack. The network is paralyzed, we receive no signal, we cannot broadcast, we do not use installation computers. We are working to get back on the air very soon!, an Imedi Channel employee said in his Facebook post.

According to the Analyst’s the attack wasn’t sophisticated but that it shows the weakness of Georgia’s cybersecurity.

Since a majority of local city councils use Russia-based email service and that many officials and other Georgians rely on a ride-sharing company based in Russia. since there is no evidence that the attack comes from Russia, many of the analysts believe that the attacker resides in Russia.

“As the First Channel of Georgia was told by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the investigation is conducted under Article 284 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, which implies unauthorized access to the computer system. The investigation is also under Article 286, which involves tampering with computer data and / or computer systems” 1tv said.