A 75-year-old Georgian woman has managed to cut off the entire country of Armenia from the internet for several hours by cutting a single cable while she was scavenging for copper.
The elderly woman is now facing a prison sentence in her native Georgia, after she reportedly did with a spade what a legion of hackers could only dream of - took down all access to the internet in neighbouring Armenia for up to 12 hours.
The country was knocked offline on 28 March after cables linking Armenia to Georgia were cut through by the woman's shovel.
A Georgian interior ministry spokesman said a 75-year-old woman - dubbed the 'spade-hacker' locally - had admitted she damaged the fibre-optic cables while she scavenging for copper wire in the village of Ksani, not far from the capital Tiblisi.
She reportedly faces up to three years in prison after being charged with damaging property.
'Taking into account her advancing years, she has been released pending the end of the investigation and subsequent trial,' interior ministry spokesman Zura Gvenetadze told the AFP news agency.
The cables were owned by the Georgian Railway Telecom company, and serve eastern Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Giorgi Ionatamishvili, a spokesman for firm, said customers suffered 'massive and catastrophic' damage. Parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan were also cut off.
Georgia provides 90 percent of Armenia’s Internet.
'We don’t how she found the optic cable, which was secure,' Ionatamishvili said, adding that severe weather and mudslides may have exposed the cable to copper hunters.
All three internet providers in Armenia - ArmenTel, FiberNet Communication and GNC-Alfa - were unable to provide their usual service on the evening of 28 March, Armenia’s Arka news agency reported.
Services were eventually restored after midnight.
