DoS: No One is Safe - Attacks On Estonia
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The country I'm speaking of is, of course, Estonia. What does Estonia have to do with anything? Well, give me a minute and I'll tell you. You see, back in March 2007 Estonia got into it with Russia when they removed the Bronze Soldier war memorial that was in central Tallinn. No more than a month later, Estonia was attacked with a barrage of cyber warfare, including the disabling of government and corporate websites.
Guess what method the attackers used to cause the greatest disturbance among the general public. If you said DDoS attacks, you win! What do you win? Another section and a half to read! Anyway, the attacks ranged from ping floods to botnets used for distributing spam. At the time, this attack was considered the second largest state-sponsored cyber-attack ever. I say “considered” because many people think Russia was responsible due to the incident that occurred a month earlier.
However, the evidence has yet to come forward linking Russia to the attacks. According to Jaak Aasviksoo, the Estonian Defense Minister, “at the moment, I cannot state for certain that the cyber attacks were managed by the Kremlin, or other Russian government agencies.” There is a well-known Russian hacker, however, named Sp0Raw, who said that the attacks could not have been executed without at least a blessing from Russian authorities, or someone of equal authority, giving notice to the scale of the attacks.
The only person to come forward and claim responsibility is Konstantin Goloskov of the Nashi pro-Kremlin movement. He said he personally took part in the attack, but that Nashi had nothing to do with it. The attacks took place in the unrecognized Moldovan region of Transdniester. Because this region isn't recognized by most of the world, it will be harder to bring any individuals to justice found to be residing there.
If anything, this attack on Estonia has alerted many countries to the importance of network security. The future of cyber warfare is upon us. The next section will go into its specifics, in a broad sense (huh?), and help show what threats it actually poses to a country.
Next: Conclusion >>
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