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Varuzhan Geghamyan (Ph.D.), an expert on the Middle East and the South Caucasus, believes both the Azerbaijani and Armenian governments may be behind the spyware attack against him.

"With no final proof about who organized this I believe that both Azerbaijan or Armenia’s current government may be behind the attack against me," he said in a tweet on Friday.

A joint investigation between Access Now, CyberHUB-AM, the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto (the Citizen Lab), Amnesty International’s Security Lab, and an independent mobile security researcher Ruben Muradyan, has revealed that at least twelve Armenian public figures and officials, including journalists and human rights defenders were targeted with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware amid conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, between October 2020 and December 2022.

Amnesty International’s Security Lab found infections of two journalists from the Armenian branch of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL): Karlen Aslanyan and Astghik Bedevyan. Other victims included Varuzhan Geghamyan, Ruben Melikyan, a lawyer and human rights activist, Armenia's former Human Rights Defender (Ombudswoman) Kristinne Grigoryan, a United Nations official, a former spokesperson of Armenia’s Foreign Ministry, and other representatives of Armenian civil society.

"Dr. Varuzhan Geghamyan, an Assistant Professor and Turkologist, had his  iPhone infected in June 2021 while he was providing analysis and  lectures on the regional and external politics of Azerbaijan," Amnesty International said.