The entire nation of Georgia has been hit by a cyberattack, the largest in that country’s history.
Indications are that the attack was politically motivated, thousands of websites suddenly featuring an image of former President Mikheil Saakashvili with the message “I’ll be back.” Additionally, at least two television stations were rendered non-functional as were the websites of several governmental agencies.
Local web hosting provider Pro-Service confirmed that it had been the target of the attack and that one of its servers had been successfully breached. In all, Pro-Service said that “some 15,000” websites had been affected by the attack.
The company later posted an update on its website stating that the “effects of the most massive cyberattack have been eliminated.”
“With the scale and the nature of the targets, it’s difficult not to conclude that this was a state-sponsored attack,” said cybersecurity expert Alan Woodward to BBC News.
Georgia had previously been targeted by cyberattacks during the country’s 2008 conflict with Russia over the disputed region of South Ossetia.
Despite the scope of the attack, no major utilities or critical services were affected.
