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Armenia’s Internet came down for up to five hours on 28 March after a 75-year-old woman hit an underground cable with a spade while she was searching for scrap copper in neighbouring Georgia.
Services in Azerbaijan and some parts of Georgia were also affected.
Georgia provides 90% of Armenia’s Internet connections. The woman’s spade sliced through an underground fiber optic cable, according to a report in UK newspaper The Guardian.
Armenia has 3.2m residents, and none of the main Internet providers ArmenTel, FiberNet Communication and GNC-Alfa could provide services while repairs were carried out.
The incident has earned the woman the name of "spade hacker" in local media, and she is now being investigated for the damage caused to the property – a fine that could see her jailed for three years if convicted, according to reports.
In Georgia, the scrap metal market is a common way of making money – but most efforts are focussed on unused cabling.
A monitoring solution attached to the cable was able to pick up where the incident occurred and the woman was arrested when security teams arrived, but later released though she is still required for questioning.