hacking alert: activists and journalists targeted online [ongoing, last update September 10]

13:19

Several activists and journalists had their Facebook accounts compromised in recent weeks in Azerbaijan. 

At the end of June, a veteran human rights lawyer, Intigam Aliyev, reported a break-in attempt into his Facebook profile. A few days later, an opposition group D18 reported their Facebook page was compromised. On July 2, journalist Aysel Umudova and activist Rustam Ismayilbeyli received messages from the Facebook platform informing them their passwords were reset. This happened despite the fact, that both users had 2FA enabled on their accounts. On July 6, journalist Fatima Movlamli’s Facebook profile was compromised. Yet again, despite 2FA and secure email service, the account was taken over by unknown users. Finally, on July 14, multiple social media users reported receiving password reset messages even though no such requests were made by the users.  

Targeting social media profiles, and pages, are common in Azerbaijan. In recent years, hacking of prominent accounts has led to mass content removal, loss of followers, and subscribers. On YouTube, account owners of popular channels report their videos are taken down by the platform due to copyright violation reports, have received strikes and in some cases, their accounts were deactivated by the platform. And yet, further investigations, indicate, that these copyright violations are indeed submitted by fake accounts and that the actual cause of the strike is nothing but a fluke.

This type of deliberate targeting limits the work of targeted account owners, whether they are human rights defenders, journalists, media platforms, or political activists. Responding to these digital attacks takes time, it also requires having the right contacts at platforms directly or vis-a-vis third parties. In addition, once the account is compromised the account owner, no longer has access to their platform for outreach, unable to share their work/updates, and face the reality of losing their audience.  

While there is some evidence pointing the attacks originate from the government-affiliated institutions, it’s been virtually impossible to prevent them from happening and keep the online community safe.

On September 10, Nigar Hezi, a political activist, said there was an attempt to compromise her Facebook account.  

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