CYBER-OFFENSIVE PRO-RUSSE CONTRE L'ESTONIE, RETOUR SUR UN CAS D'ECOLE
Le 27 avril dernier démarraient toute une séries d'attaques en "déni de service" visant les principaux sites internet estoniens gouvernementaux et institutionnels. Si les actes de hacking "technique" (motivation liée au défi que représentent les protections avancées de systèmes informatiques sur internet) sont aujourd'hui monnaie courante, les hackers chinois défrayant la chronique il y a encore peu de temps, ce cas résulte d'une toute autre motivation : porter atteinte à l'indépendance économique d'un pays par paralysie informatique. Ainsi des informaticiens pro-russes, on en dira pas plus, ont-ils signés leurs méfaits en publiant des tracts de propagande en lieu et place de ces sites, suite au déménagement d'un monument commémoratif soviétique sur la grande place de Talinn. Internet est désormais utilisé par les Forts non-plus uniquement comme un moyen de contrôle et de communication, mais également comme un moyen de pression politique sur les Faibles. La riposte reste possible, néanmoins la prime reste pratiquement toujours du côté du premier attaquant dans ce type de situation.
...But the internet attacks have continued. Some have involved defacing Estonian websites, replacing the pages with Russian propaganda or bogus apologies. Most have concentrated on shutting them down. The attacks are intensifying. The number on May 9th-the day when Russia and its allies commemorate Hitler's defeat in Europe-was the biggest yet, says Hillar Aarelaid, who runs Estonia's cyber-warfare defences. At least six sites were all but inaccessible, including those of the foreign and justice ministries. Such stunts happen at the murkier end of internet commerce: for instance, to extort money from an online casino. But no country has experienced anything on this scale.
The alarm is sounding well beyond Estonia. NATO has been paying special attention. “If a member state's communications centre is attacked with a missile, you call it an act of war. So what do you call it if the same installation is disabled with a cyber-attack?” asks a senior official in Brussels. Estonia's defence ministry goes further: a spokesman compares the attacks to those launched against America on September 11th 2001. Two of NATO's top specialists in internet warfare, plus an American colleague, have hurried to Tallinn to observe the onslaught. But international law is of little help, complains Rein Lang, Estonia's justice minister.
The crudest attacks come with the culprit's electronic fingerprints. The Estonians say that some of the earliest salvoes came from computers linked to the Russian government. But most of them come from many thousands of ordinary computers, all over the world. Some of these are run by private citizens angry with Estonia. Anonymously posted instructions on how to launch denial-of-service attacks have been sprouting on Russian-language internet sites. Many others come from “botnets”-chains of computers that have been hijacked by viruses to take part in such raids without their owners knowing. Such botnets can be created, or simply rented from cyber-criminals.
To remain open to local users, Estonia has had to cut access to its sites from abroad. That is potentially more damaging to the country's economy than the limited Russian sanctions announced so far, such as cutting passenger rail services between Tallinn and St Petersburg. It certainly hampers Estonia's efforts to counter Russian propaganda that portrays the country as a fascist hellhole. “We are back to the stone age, telling the world what is going on with phone and fax,” says an Estonian internet expert. Mikko Hyppönen of F-Secure, a Finnish internet security company that has been monitoring the attacks, says the best defence is to have strong networks of servers in many countries. That is not yet NATO's job. But it may be soon.
Source : The Economist
The alarm is sounding well beyond Estonia. NATO has been paying special attention. “If a member state's communications centre is attacked with a missile, you call it an act of war. So what do you call it if the same installation is disabled with a cyber-attack?” asks a senior official in Brussels. Estonia's defence ministry goes further: a spokesman compares the attacks to those launched against America on September 11th 2001. Two of NATO's top specialists in internet warfare, plus an American colleague, have hurried to Tallinn to observe the onslaught. But international law is of little help, complains Rein Lang, Estonia's justice minister.
The crudest attacks come with the culprit's electronic fingerprints. The Estonians say that some of the earliest salvoes came from computers linked to the Russian government. But most of them come from many thousands of ordinary computers, all over the world. Some of these are run by private citizens angry with Estonia. Anonymously posted instructions on how to launch denial-of-service attacks have been sprouting on Russian-language internet sites. Many others come from “botnets”-chains of computers that have been hijacked by viruses to take part in such raids without their owners knowing. Such botnets can be created, or simply rented from cyber-criminals.
To remain open to local users, Estonia has had to cut access to its sites from abroad. That is potentially more damaging to the country's economy than the limited Russian sanctions announced so far, such as cutting passenger rail services between Tallinn and St Petersburg. It certainly hampers Estonia's efforts to counter Russian propaganda that portrays the country as a fascist hellhole. “We are back to the stone age, telling the world what is going on with phone and fax,” says an Estonian internet expert. Mikko Hyppönen of F-Secure, a Finnish internet security company that has been monitoring the attacks, says the best defence is to have strong networks of servers in many countries. That is not yet NATO's job. But it may be soon.
Source : The Economist
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"Think of the Internet as a weapon on the table. Either you pick it up or your competitor does – but somebody is going to get killed." -- Michael Dell, Founder & CEO of Dell Computer


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