Azernews.Az

Hackers crashed the websites of several Azerbaijani government agencies and media outlets on Monday.

A group of hackers calling themselves as Azerian Cyber Army targeted the Web pages of the interior ministry, an information center and Azermarka company of the communications ministry, the state customs committee, the council for state support to NGOs under the President, and the education ministry. Also attacked were the websites of the Constitutional Court, the ruling Yeni (New) Azerbaijan Party, the Baku-based Trend news agency and AzerTAj state news agency, as well as President Ilham Aliyev’s uncle, Academician Jalal Aliyev.

The intruders posted words insulting the Azerbaijani state.

Some of the websites are back on track, while the others have not yet been restored.

Azerbaijani state bodies have launched an investigation into the incident.

MP Aydin Mirzazada has said the cyber-attacks on Azerbaijani state-run and influential websites "are not just a technical provocation".

"The list of the hacked websites shows that it was done on purpose and aimed at disabling state, government and authoritative websites of Azerbaijan," Mirzazada told Trend news agency on Monday.

Mirzazada added that the attack pursued political purposes.

"The attack aimed primarily at casting a shadow on the increasing image of Azerbaijan. Someone is unhappy with the development of Azerbaijan, its successes in domestic and foreign policies. Azerbaijan's transformation into a developed country worries some. However, their attempts are doomed to failure," he said but did not elaborate.