War Fears Turn Digital After Data Siege in Estonia

WAR FEARS TURN DIGITAL AFTER DATA SIEGE IN ESTONIA
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Mark Landler & John Markoff]
Estonia may be seeing the first war in cyberspace. A monthlong campaign has forced Estonian authorities to defend their Baltic nation from a data flood that they say was set off by orders from Russia or ethnic Russian sources in retaliation for the removal of the statue. The Russian government has denied any involvement in the attacks, which came close to shutting down the country’s digital infrastructure, clogging the Web sites of the president, the prime minister, Parliament and other government agencies, staggering Estonia’s biggest bank and overwhelming the sites of several daily newspapers. “It turned out to be a national security situation,” Estonia’s defense minister, Jaak Aaviksoo, said in an interview. “It can effectively be compared to when your ports are shut to the sea.” Computer security experts from NATO, the European Union, the United States and Israel have since converged on Tallinn to offer help and to learn what they can about cyberwar in the digital age.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/technology/29estonia.html
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