Another coordinated cyber attack - this time on the websites operated by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) - was launched over the weekend that marked the one-year anniversary of the “cyber war” offensive against Estonia. That three-week internet barrage on Estonia’s civil electronic portals occurred amid ire in Moscow about Estonia’s decision to move a Soviet war memorial out of the city center in the Estonian capital, Tallinn. Labeled the world’s first “cyber war” by some observers, the episode is recounted and analyzed in depth in Kertu Ruus’s article in the newest issue of European Affairs.

This time, the principal targets were RFE/RL’s sites in Belarus, which were put out of action for several days until the attacks were publicly reported - and then abruptly ceased. April 26, the day the attacks began, was the 22nd anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, and RFE/RL had been planning live internet coverage of a large rally that day protesting the plight of uncompensated Chernobyl victims - many of whom lived in Belarus and were in the zone of heavy radioactive fallout from the reactor that suffered a meltdown in neighboring Ukraine. At the time, in 1986, both those countries were part of the Soviet Union and ruled from Moscow.

The recent cyber attacks came just days after the so-called “Hackers Panel” convened in London at the annual InfoSecurity Europe conference. The panel includes “white hat” hackers, who help companies tighten up their digital security by searching for flaws in their defenses. This year the hackers, who for the first time broke their usual custom of anonymity, warned that major nationwide British shopping chains were likely prime targets for future cyber attacks. “If someone wants to have a pop at the UK, they are unlikely to go for the government web servers,” said Steve Armstrong, an expert in hacking and a member of the panel. “They will go for the lower hanging fruit - companies which are seen as good representatives of the country.”

Related Post:
Lessons from Estonia: Homeland Security Chief Says Cyber Threat “on par with 9/11″, 18 April 2008

See Also:
RFE/RL Websites Hit By Mass Cyberattack, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 28 April 2008
Radio Free Europe says it’s under cyber attack, Associated Press, 28 April 2008
Hackers warn High Street chains, BBC News, 25 April 2008

Michael Chertoff, the U.S. homeland security head, warned recently that the potential harm of a cyber-warfare attack was “on a par” with what the United States sustained in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. He issued the warning this month at a public meeting of information-technology specialists in California.

This threat is treated in depth in the current issue of European Affairs, due out this week in the article entitled “Cyber War I” about the massive attack last year on Estonia’s civilian infrastructure of communications, finance and public service. Western defenses are still in their infancy, and Chertoff’s comments were partly aimed at getting the tech community to overcome their inhibitions about helping national security in this realm. As described in this reconstruction of the episode in Estonia, the tide was turned in Cyber War I partly thanks to a helping hand from some top global geeks. Written by Kertu Ruus, U.S. bureau chief of the leading Estonian business daily Aripaev, the article talks about the status of Western readiness against computer warfare, including the creation in Estonia of a NATO center to work on this specialized form of war.

At last week’s IT conference in Silicon Valley, Chertoff’s overtures to technology’s private sector were clear: “Please send some of your brightest and best to do service in the government,” he asked the audience. He acknowledged that the Federal government is unable to compete with private industry in terms of money, but hoped that some of the U.S.’s top IT professionals would be drawn to DHS out of a desire to serve their country.

Read Kertu Ruus’s account of Cyber War I in the upcoming issue of European Affairs.

See Also: Cyber risk ‘equals 9/11 impact’, BBC News, 8 April 2008