Estonia blames hack attacks on Russia
p2pnet.net news:- Estonia says Russia is behind hack attacks which all but closed government and business sites across the country.
Its government compares the events to an act of war, says The Wall Street Journal, but, “The Kremlin has denied any Russian government involvement”, says the story.
The “cyber-offensive” has been, “linked to a furious diplomatic row between Russia and Estonia” and is believed to be, “the first time that a single state has come under concerted attack by hackers,” according to The Telegraph, which continues:
The presidential administration’s website was inaccessible for six days late last month while those of most cabinet ministries suffered reduced connection speeds after they too were targeted.
While there has been greater preoccupation in Tallinn with more tangible assaults on Estonian interests, including attacks by pro-Kremlin youths on its Moscow embassy and the disruption of fuel supplies, officials said the cyber-attacks set a worrying precedent.
The attack started on April 27 after Estonia took down a Soviet statue in Talinn. It had commemorated Red Army soldiers killed in World War II, says the WSJ, going on, “The incident inflamed relations between the two countries. In Moscow, pro-Kremlin youth groups blockaded the Estonian embassy and harassed the Estonian ambassador. Estonia, with a population of 1.3 million, was formerly a part of the old Soviet Union.”
Estonians say the statue reminds them of 50 years of Soviet occupation.
A Nato spokesman said the organisation was giving Estonia technical help, says the BBC.
“In the 21st century it’s not just about tanks and artillery,” it has Nato spokesman James Appathurai saying. “We have sent one of our experts at the request of the Estonian authorities to help them in their defence.”
Some of the earliest attacks were linked by Estonia to Russian government computers, “including one in President Vladimir Putin’s office,” says The Telegraph, but it points out there’s been no hard evidence to connect the campaign to the Kremlin.
“This is because the hackers used robots to infiltrate hundreds of thousands of computers around the world without their owners’ knowledge,” it states. “The infected machines would then have flooded Estonian websites with bogus information in what is known as a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. It is believed that hackers have infected up to a quarter of the world’s computers, making tracing the true culprits almost impossible.”
Said The Times Online soon after the cyber attacks began in April, Russia threatened to punish Estonia for the “blasphemous and inhuman” removal of a, “monument to the Red Army”.
“The Estonian Government moved the bronze statue of a Soviet soldier in the dead of night after the Baltic state’s worst violence since independence more than 15 years ago,” says the story, adding, “One man died and 57 were hurt, including 12 police, during six hours of clashes on Thursday night that left the streets littered with glass.”
Most Estonian ministry sites are nowonline again, but some banking and media companies say they’re still having problems, say reports.
Estonia now wants the issue at the top of Friday’s EU-Russia summit agenda.
Also See:
The Wall Street Journal – Cyber Attack Vexes Estonia, Poses Debate, May 18, 2007
The Telegraph – Estonia calls for Nato cyber-terrorism strategy, May 18, 2007
BBC – Estonia hit by ‘Moscow cyber war’, May 17, 2007
The Times Online – Russia cries blasphemy as statue to war dead is taken down, April 28, 2007
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