Largest cyber-attack in Georgia’s history linked to hacked web hosting provider

A hacker has defaced over 15,000 websites hosted on the infrastructure of Pro-Service, a Georgian web hosting provider, including government sites, local newspapers, and TV stations.

Yesterday, the country of Georgia suffered a major cyber-attack.  Over 15,000 websites were defaced with an image of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, with the text “I’ll be back” overlaid on top.  Two television stations went off-air following the attacks.  I did read in another article that one of the TV station’s equipment was actually destroyed by the attack.  A third TV station was affected, but did not go off-air.  Several newspaper sites were also brought down.  Many linked yesterday’s attack with a similar 2008 Russian attack that defaced government sites and hacked TV and radio stations.  Although currently there is no evidence to suggest it was Russian based, an investigation was started to identify the culprit.

Pro-Service, a local web hosting provider, took blame for the issue.  They admitted that a hacker breached its network and took down customer websites.