YEREVAN. – The greatest splash of cybercrimes, as a rule, happens during the election period, when websites are hacked, huge number of profiles are created, and misinformation is spread, Armenian social media an information security expert Samvel Martirosyan told reporters on Monday.

He reminded of the sensational story of Russian hackers and the U.S. elections. Such attacks were intended to undermine confidence, to bring uncertainty and confusion. The expert did not rule out the possibility of foreign cyber-attacks by Azerbaijan during the upcoming parliamentary elections in Armenia. The similar situation was observed during the presidential elections in 2013.

However, even here there are new trends. Many media outlets use social networks for political propaganda during the election period. Meanwhile, the youth prefers to stay away from politicized social networks. During electoral campaigns many users of Facebook in Armenia are deactivating their accounts to avoid politicization of the content. More and more people are switching to Instagram. For the last 2-3 months the number of registered users increased by more than 50%, reaching half a million.