Additional Information on the 'Large Scale' Cyber-Attack

A massive cyber-attack took down more than 2,000 websites in Georgia including the official website of the Georgian Public Broadcaster, on October 28. Court websites containing case materials and personal data were also attacked.

In most cases, website home pages were replaced with an image of former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, with the header “I’ll be back”. The source of the attack is not yet known.

Alan Woodward, an expert in this field, told the BBC that an attack of this scale is rather rare.

"The scale of this attack is something we haven't seen before," said Prof Alan Woodward, cyber-security expert at Surrey University.

"With the scale and the nature of the targets, it's difficult not to conclude that this was a state-sponsored attack," adds the professor.

The wide-scale cyber-attack also affected court and administrative websites containing imperative information and personal data. Government websites (with .GOV endings) were similarly paralyzed.