The head of the Central Election Commission: Since May 10, the Central Election Commission`s system has been subject to periodic cyberattacks

ArmInfo. Since May 10, various information systems in Armenia, including the Central Electoral Commission's system, have been subject to periodic cyberattacks. CEC Chairman Vahagn Hovakimyan announced this at a briefing for journalists on September 18.

However, as the CEC head noted, these attacks, which were periodic in nature, did not affect the election results. "I am not a cybersecurity specialist. There is a specialized structure – the Information Systems Agency of Armenia. We do not ensure this security; it is provided by a professional structure. As CEC Chairman, I simply receive reports on the results," Hovakimyan said.

When asked why the CEC did not contact the relevant authorities to investigate the case, Hovakimyan replied that the security of the commission's system was initially ensured by a specialized structure. "A cyberattack is not a report of a crime. This is a different process, and the relevant structures are involved. I can publish what I have published, but I do not know the other details. The scale and volume to which the Armenian Information Systems Agency will publish later is their professional decision," the CEC Chairman noted, without specifying from which servers or the country these cyberattacks were carried out. Moreover, the CEC Chairman is not aware of whether there is a mandatory legal requirement to initiate a criminal case in such cases. Nevertheless, according to the CEC Chairman, even a successful attack on the system could not change the election results, since they are based on paper protocols from polling stations. "The results of our elections are on paper. All participating parties, observers and journalists can have these protocols. If they had managed to damage the system, they would simply have stopped the publication we were doing online. In this case, the statement about the cessation of online publication of results would have been true, but this did not happen,” Vahagn Hovakimyan emphasized.