False Friends: How Fake Accounts and Crude Malware Targeted Dissidents in Azerbaijan

Rasul Jafarovis a prominent lawyer and human rights defender in Azerbaijan. In mid-October 2016, he received an unexpected phone call.

He told Amnesty International: “one of my colleagues called me…and said ‘I received an email from you and you’re mentioning something about political prisoners and there is an attachment there. But I know your email for sure it’s not that one.”

Leyla and Arif Yunus.

Elshan Hasanov, a human rights activist working on cases of politically-motivated prosecution, also told Amnesty that his Facebook account was taken over a few times, with friends receiving unwanted messages ostensibly from him.

Screenshot of the Facebook conversation.

Screenshot of the Facebook conversation.

Source: Hurricane Electric

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