Even though seemingly invisible, cyber-attacks have shown to be an excellent mechanism in the run-up to elections.

What are cyber-attacks, how do they affect the work of the media, what commercial, media and political implications do they have and how are they used as a pre-election “weapon”, were part of the questions that CIVIL raised at the panel discussion “Cyber-attacks – a pre-election weapon”, and also the topic of this edition of SCAN – political video magazine.

The occasion for the panel discussion is the increased cyber-attacks on Internet media in the pre-election period. Among those targeted by cyber-attacks are also Sloboden pecat, CIVIL MEDIA, as well as many other Internet media.

Saso Ordanoski at CIVIL’s panel discussion “Cyber-attacks – a pre-election weapon”, spoke about the recent cyber-attack on the server of Sloboden pecat.

Ermin Klimenta, web developer at ELAMI, on the other hand, spoke about his experience working in CIVIL and about the attacks and problems that he faced several years ago.

Filip Stojanovski, Director for Partnership and Resource Development in the Metamorphosis Foundation, continued after Ordanoski and Klimenta and gave an outline as to how frequent cyber-attacks are in our country, who the targets of these cyber-attacks are, and why they take place.

Activist and blogger Jane Gjorgjioski spoke about how cyber-attacks affect activists and ordinary people, but also bloggers.

Panellists also gave their views on how to tackle cyber-attacks, what we can expect, and what we can do as protection against them.

Biljana Jordanovska

camera: Atanas Petrovski

translation: Natasa Cvetkovska