"Thailand: Authorities must end malicious smear campaigns and cyberattacks on civil society", 7 April 2025

Amnesty International has called on the Thai authorities to investigate and take any necessary measures to end cyberattacks against human rights activists after leaked internal government documents showed that Amnesty International was among several civil society groups targeted in a coordinated, state-sponsored campaign…

It also engaged in phishing attacks and brute-force attempts to access social media accounts. The former Executive Director of Amnesty International’s Thailand office was among those targeted.

“These cyberattacks are an outrageous assault on Thailand’s civic space. Thai authorities must immediately end these malicious smear campaigns against human rights defenders and activists,” Amnesty International’s Thailand Researcher Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong said…

… According to the leaked materials, Amnesty International was explicitly identified as a “high-value target”. Other international non-governmental organizations, local civil society groups, prominent activists, … were also in this list, including human rights organizations Thai Lawyers for Human Rights and iLaw, as well as young woman human rights defender Anna Annanon.

The Cyber Team disseminated harmful and defamatory content online. For instance, in response to Amnesty International’s social media posts related to the excessive use of force against protesters in Thailand, the Cyber Team instructed officials to respond by portraying the protesters as violent…

A brute-force attack is used to gain unauthorized access to systems, networks, or encrypted data by systematically testing all possible combinations of credentials or keys until the correct one is found through trial-and-error…

Amnesty International’s earlier research, …, highlighted how Thai authorities and state-aligned actors systematically deployed targeted digital surveillance and online harassment, including smear campaigns, disproportionately impacting women and LGBTI human rights defenders. Such digital violence has been systematically deployed to attack human rights defenders, suppress civic engagement and severely curtail freedom of expression…