Artur Papyan: Armenia is very vulnerable to cyberattacks

Speaking with Alpha News, information security expert Artur Papyan noted with regret that our state is quite vulnerable in terms of cybersecurity․

“Armenia is very vulnerable to cyberattacks and we witnessed this during the July and September wars in 2020. Literally everything that could be hacked in Armenia was more or less hacked: government websites, emails of government officials, and there were also big data leaks,” Papyan said.

According to him, we have a problem with attracting qualified experts to government agencies, and the reason is wages.

“Of course, we are a small state, but we see that such cyber superpowers, like the United States, are also experiencing difficulties in this area. This area is developing very quickly. There is a problem with specialists, and the state, in turn, cannot attract specialists because government salaries are very low compared to the private sector,” Papyan emphasized.

Our interlocutor noted that there are benefits in the private IT sector that public employees do not have.

“Our state, for example, provides benefits to the private IT sector. But when the same benefits are not provided to public sector employees, a good IT specialist is more eager to work in the private sector. The state has very serious challenges in the IT industry. There are problems with attracting qualified experts, and the state cannot compete with itself,” Papyan concluded.