A large-scale cyber attack in the country of Georgia has shut down over 2,000 websites, including the national television station.
The massive cyber attack on Georgia also brought down court websites that contained case materials and personal data. The attack's origin is yet to be determined.
In many of the websites affected by the attacked, their home pages were substituted with a picture of the country's former president Mikheil Saakashvili with a caption that reads "I'll be back". Several people on social media are speculating that the attacks might have been orchestrated by Russia.
BBC Caucasus correspondent Rayhan Demytrie reported that cyber security experts claimed that the country's government websites were "poorly protected and vulnerable to attack". It affected over 15,000 web pages, including the presidential website, non-government organizations and private companies.
In a Facebook post, Irakli Chikhladze, head of news at TV station Imedi reported that there was no signal, and the station was unable to broadcast. Chikhladze added that the national TV network Imedi and another network, Maestro, were affected by the attack.
Professor Alan Woodward, cybersecurity expert at Surrey University, said "The scale of this attack is something we haven't seen before. With the scale and the nature of the targets, it's difficult not to conclude that this was a state-sponsored attack."
Woodward also noted that while the ensuing disruption had been "significant", critical national infrastructure did not appear to have been affected.
Saakashvili served two terms as president of Georgia between 2004 and 2013 but in 2015, he gave up his Georgian citizenship when he become governor of Ukraine's Odessa region. After a falling out with his predecessor, he was deported from Ukraine in 2018 but his Ukrainian citizenship was restored in May 2019.
He is currently a wanted person in Georgia on criminal charges but he claims that these are politically motivated.
