A set of Armenian websites have been under DDOS attacks since yesterday. www.a1plus.am, www.lragir.am, www.tert.am and many other websites have been out of service. www.aravot.am tried to find out from the mentioned websites whether the attacks continued and what attacks they were in particular. Susanna Ohanjanyan, the producer of www.a1plus.am, informed during a conversation with us, “The attacks have been made so quickly since yesterday that our technical service worker couldn’t manage to enter the server. The website worked normally in the morning, but they are attacking at the moment again.” Haykaz Ghahriyan, the editor of www.lragir.am, also stated that the attacks were still under way and went into detail, “That is the reason why we turned on our website only in Armenia; before this problem is finally solved, the website will not be accessible around the world. These are DDOS attacks.”
We inquired whether they connected the attacks with the Safarov issue and whether the attacks had been made by Azerbaijanis. H. Ghahriyan replied, “When we check IPs, we see that attacks are made from dozens of countries, therefore, we cannot surely say that this one necessarily makes them for this particular reason. They are made from the CIS countries, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, but it doesn’t mean that those countries make them. They can break into the servers of those countries from one center and make those attacks in order that one cannot even guess who the attacker is. However, one thing we can say for sure – the Republic of Armenia and Azerbaijan cannot carry out such operations. Much more powerful countries can do that, for example, Russians. A Russian company is alleged to do that. The
attacks don’t stop and the automatic system can be turned on for months and the attacks will continue until the internet providers of the given countries don’t stop them.”
We also talked to Samvel Martirosyan, a media expert. He explained, “This is a specific attack, when not a particular person, but hundreds of thousands of infected computers attack. Those computers fill tubes with garbage, as a result of which the websites are not hacked into, but are not accessible either. The problem is that no one can see who does it. However, I am 101% sure that it is ordered by Azerbaijanis. They don’t do that, since they don’t have resources, but they have given money to a large group of hackers to carry out that attack.”
Read also
In response to our observation that there were speculations that Russians did that, S. Martirosyan said, “India or China can also do that, it is just that Russians are the most powerful and it is easier for the post-Soviet countries to get in touch with them.”
In response to our question how long could the attack last, the media expert said, “Money talks; they have given hell of a lot of money.”
As for whether the Armenian side was ready to resist the attacks, S. Martirosyan said, “We defend ourselves, yesterday almost no website worked, whereas today the websites have recovered. However, the attack still continues, it is just that Armenians stopped them. If they put a few millions in it, it may continue for a few months. Azerbaijan has found itself in a difficult position in terms of propaganda, therefore, they do this to do at least something. The whole world has perceived the Safarov issue so unambiguously that Azerbaijanis are left with only this way of doing evil to Armenians.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
