Online Educa (2) Estonia attack

Cyber-attack in Estonia

Continuing coverage of the International Forum on eLearning for Defence and Security

Estonian General Johannes Kert described the recent state-sponsored cyber attacks against his country.

Estonia is the most wired country in the world. In April and May 2007, government sites, banks, and network infrastructure were bombarded by denial of service attacks, DDoS, botnets, spam, and more. No critical systems went down for long.

The Estonians’ assessment:

• attacks politically motivated
• attacks came in waves
• took advantage of anonymity (Estonia not yet sure who carried this out)
• attacks required significant resources

General Kert noted that the Internet is perfect battlefield of the 21st century. You don’t know who you’re fighting.

What is war? If a missile takes out a power plant, it’s an act of war. What is it if a cyber attack takes in down? Is that war?