ESTONIA TO HELP GEORGIA FIGHT BACK AGAINST CYBERATTACKS
By Matthew Harwood

Security Management
08/12/2008
Virginia

Two Estonian computer security experts will arrive in Georgia tonight
to help the besieged government battle back against an array of
cyberattacks, reports ComputerWorld.com.

Two of the four experts that staff Estonia’s Computer Emergency
Response Team (CERT) were waiting Tuesday morning in Yerevan, the
capital of Armenia, seeking permission to drive into Georgia, said
Katrin Pargmae, communication manager for the Estonian Informatics
Center. The two officials are also bringing humanitarian aid, she said.

Estonia is also now hosting Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Web site, which has been under sustained attack over the last few days.

Other Georgian Web sites are currently being hosted on American
servers.

Paralleling what’s occurring militarily in the real world between
Russian and Georgian soldiers, battles have been waged in cyberspace
as well. Hackers known as the South Ossetia Hack Crew have directed
denial-of-service attacks against prominent Georgian Web sites as
the country’s Parliament and its president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

Computer security experts see Russian fingerprints on such attacks.

"The Russian government is in the position to deny that they are
directly responsible for the attacks but they have allowed the attacks
to happen and they have allowed the attacks to come out of servers that
are under their jurisidiction and their control," Scott Borg, director
of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, told National Public Radio.

As ComputerWorld.com reports, the Russian government has long been
suspected of directing cyberattacks against neighboring countries
such as Estonia, Lithuania, and Georgia when political struggles
have erupted.