Technical analysis

Users of the social media platform TikTok in Azerbaijan started reporting difficulties accessing the application as early as September 13. On September 14, the State Security Service announced its decision to block access to the platform entirely on the grounds the platform was casting a shadow over the military activities, revealing military secrets, and forming […]

This month, Meta released its pilot quarterly Adversarial Threat Report. Among the countries mentioned in the report, is Azerbaijan where the platform said it has identified “a hybrid network operated by the Ministry of the Internal Affairs.” According to the document, this network relied on, what Meta refers to as, “Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior [CIB]” in […]

It’s been months since an investigation led by an international consortium of journalists and technology experts revealed how Pegasus, a hacking software developed and sold by an Israeli surveillance company, NSO group targeted civil society representatives globally. On the country lists of phone numbers identified to have been targeted with Pegasus were numbers that belonged […]

After The Guardian’s expose on Facebook overlooking trolling activity in Azerbaijan (and elsewhere) earlier this year, one would think that the platform would finally take notice and address how the platform is abused by trolls and the actors operating them. Instead, the loopholes remain and from the looks of it, the platform is doing little […]

Account compromise, website hacks, DDoS attempts, phishing are just a handful of tactics used to target journalists, rights defenders, and activists in Azerbaijan.  Here is a list of new cases:  Earlier in July, Azerbaijan Internet Watch reported a phishing attack that targeted some of the civil society activists. Following a forensic investigation carried out in […]

On July 16, Qurium Media Foundation released a report, “A Decade of Efforts To Keep Independent Azerbaijani Media Online”.  The report highlights the work carried out by Qurium since 2010 assisting targeted independent and opposition online news platforms in Azerbaijan. “For more than a decade, Qurium has monitored and mitigated a wide range of cyberattacks […]

On July 8, Azerbaijan Internet Watch received a notification that an email sent on behalf of Human Rights Watch reached a number of prominent Azerbaijani civil society activists. The email contained an attachment “Human Rights Invoice Form Document – 2021.docx” prompting the recipient to download the attached file. AIW, reached out to partners at Qurium […]

On July 1, Azerbaijan Internet Watch launched a new report titled “Media censorship in Azerbaijan through the lens of network measurement”. The report was prepared in partnership with the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) summarising key findings from network measurements conducted between January 2020 to May 2021. The full report can be accessed here. About […]

According to latest measurements carried out by OONI, access to a number of key news sites remains blocked in Azerbaijan.  In its latest report that covers the period from January through April, OONI concludes, there is “a strong signal that specific censorship techniques are adopted to block access to these specific media websites.” One noteworthy […]

On March 1, Access Now released the #KeepItOn report that documents incidents of internet shutdowns globally for the year 2020.  According to the findings of the report: there were 155 Internet shutdowns documented across 29 countries; there were 28 complete internet blackouts;  out of the 155 internet shutdowns, six incidents were bandwidth throttling; there were […]