Hacking in Armenia rises sharply: What is situation in region and world?

Hackers in Armenia hacked 5 times more accounts in the third quarter of 2022 than in the previous one. According to Surfshark company, if in the second quarter the number of hacked accounts in Armenia was 4,919, in the third quarter - already 19,336.

According to the company's data, the density of leaks makes 7 accounts per 1,000 people. Such a picture can be explained by the Azerbaijani aggression against the sovereign territory of Armenia in September of this year: it was accompanied by large-scale hacker attacks on Armenian sites and users of social networks in the Armenian segment.

Meanwhile, in the region...

In Azerbaijan itself the number of compromised accounts in the third quarter of 2022 was almost 1.5 times higher (10,336) than in the second (7,459). The density of leaks is 1 account per 1,000 people.

As for other countries in the region, Georgia, for example, saw 14,250 accounts hacked in the third quarter, nearly three times more than in the previous three months (5,910). The density of leaks here is 4 accounts per 1,000 people.

In Turkey, 23.7 million accounts were hacked in the third quarter of 2022 and 40.8 million accounts were hacked in the second quarter. The density of leaks is 3 accounts per 1,000 people.

The biggest jump in the region was in Iran, where nearly 10 times as many accounts (215,000) were hacked in the third quarter as in the second (21,800). This can be attributed to the large-scale protests that began in the country. The density of leaks in the Islamic Republic is 3 accounts per 1,000 people.

It turns out that in terms of leak density, Armenia currently holds first place in the region (7 compromised accounts per 1,000 people). But in the world, of course, there are higher rates.

And what about the world?

The first line in the ranking of the most vulnerable countries in the world is Russia, where more than 22.3 million accounts have been hacked (with a leak density of 153 per 1,000 people). That said, Russia is the only country where the number of hacks has declined rather than increased, given that hackers hacked 24.5 million accounts in Russia in the second quarter.

Russia came out on top in the ranking of the world's most hacked countries only in the last three months, and before that for 10 whole years the main victim of hackers in the world was the United States, which now finds itself in only 4th place in the ranking.

Second place in the list of the most hacked countries was France (13.8 million compromised accounts), and the third - Indonesia (13.3 million compromised accounts, recorded a sharp jump of 1370%). In the U.S., 8.5 million accounts were hacked in the third quarter.

However, France ranks first in the world in leak density, while Russia ranks second: if Russia recorded 153 leaks per 1,000 people, then France recorded 212 leaks per 1,000 people.

Spain, China, Brazil, and Taiwan were also among the top eight countries most vulnerable to hacker attacks, based on the total number of compromised accounts.

Meanwhile, in Belarus, the number of compromised accounts has increased fourfold - up to 539,000 accounts. And the interest of hackers in Ukrainian accounts in the light of current events has fallen by 14%.

Does this mean that things are very bad with cybersecurity?

According to media expert Artur Papyan, it's impossible to judge the cyber security level of a country, including Armenia, based on the data published by a private company.

The problem is that the server, which stores the data of Armenian accounts, may be located in another country, for example, in the U.S.

"In this case, we can only draw parallels between different countries. At the same time Armenia has rather good figures this year, which can hardly be compared with the figures of the 44-day war, when the data of 2,5mln Armenians was leaked.

According to the same company, Israel, which is considered a giant in terms of cybersecurity, had 110,000 leaks in the third quarter of 2022, while only 19,000 from Armenia.  The leak density is 13 accounts per 1,000 people, which is twice as high as in Armenia.

Azerbaijan and Turkey have lower figures but the level of internet penetration there is lower than in Armenia," the expert told NEWS.am Tech.