“Our research reveals that a targeted and coordinated cyber campaign is being waged against critical voices in Azerbaijan, many of whom are long-time victims of government repression. The malware used has been designed with the express intention of gathering as much private information as possible about a target”, Claudio Guarnieri, Senior Technologist at Amnesty International, said.

The report, entitled “False Friends - how fake accounts and crude malware targeted dissidents in Azerbaijan”, presents details on how victims have been targeted using a practice known as ‘spear phishing’, which involves an email with an attachment containing a virus - known as malware - being sent to a target from a fake address. If the recipient of the email clicks on the attachment, a virus is downloaded which relays images of the target’s screen back to the attacker and enables them to record what the target is typing.

The emails were mostly sent from addresses impersonating prominent human rights and political activists. One victim was the lawyer and human rights activist Rasul Jafarov. “I believe that [the Azerbaijani authorities] are trying to closely watch everyone who is criticizing the government, who is implementing different activities, or projects or campaigns which the government doesn’t like”, he told Amnesty International.