"The major hacking attack that struck the social accounts of Ciao Armenia” by Carlo Coppola
Questo articolo in lingua italiana dal titolo "Il clamoroso hackeraggio ha colpito gli account social di Ciao Armenia" scritto da Carlo Coppola è apparso sul giornale "Bari Connessa" diretto da Marina Basile al seguente link:
Fifteen months of editorial work, including articles, reportage, photo collections and a dense network of contacts, were wiped out within a matter of hours. This is the dramatic toll of the recent cyberattack on the Ciao Armenia portal, a company created to promote and tell the story of the dialogue and friendship between Italy and Armenia.
An extensive productive and cultural ecosystem revolves around the publication: contributors, photographers, translators, advertisers and associations that found in this showcase a fundamental point of reference. The sudden shutdown of the platform and the deletion of its content have thus interrupted a chain of activities that relied entirely on this digital infrastructure.
Making an already critical situation worse was the substantial inaction of the tech giants tied to the publication. Meta, through its Facebook and Instagram platforms, failed to provide timely responses, allowing months of work to go up in smoke. During the most decisive hours, the editorial team found itself bouncing off automated procedures and response times entirely incompatible with the emergency at hand.
Voicing the outrage and determination of the team is the company’s founder, Alessandro L’Abbate, a journalist specializing in tourism and international relations. L’Abbate is also engaged in promoting the Italian production system around the world, and is originally from Polignano a Mare, a jewel of Puglia. Together with our friend Alessandro and his staff, as Armenian citizens, we are confident that the entire matter will be resolved in the appropriate venues by the Armenian authorities and by the international authorities competent in web security.
His words express full trust in the institutions and reaffirm a firm determination not to give up and to restart as soon as possible. This episode, however, raises questions of broader significance: on the one hand, the structural fragility of independent publishing, often lacking the means to mount advanced cyber defenses; on the other, the direct responsibility of the web’s large multinationals, which are called upon to provide concrete, human and timely assistance to those who use their services to deliver news every day.
Because when a newspaper that builds cultural bridges between two peoples is wounded, the damage does not strike only one editorial team, but impoverishes an entire space of cultural dialogue and diplomacy between Italy and Armenia.
By Carlo Coppola
