Estonia recovers from massive DDoS attack
Denial-of-service onslaught may have Russian origins
IDG News Service - A spree of denial-of-service attacks against Web sites in Estonia appears to be subsiding, as the government calls for greater response mechanisms to cyber attacks within the European Union.
The attacks, which started around April 27, have crippled Web sites for Estonia's prime minister, banks, and less-trafficked sites run by small schools, said Hillar Aarelaid, chief security officer for Estonia's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), on Thursday. But most of the affected Web sites have been able to restore service.
"Yes, it's serious problem, but we are up and running," Aarelaid said.
Aarelaid said analysts have found postings on Web sites indicating Russian hackers may be involved in the attacks. However, analysis of the malicious traffic shows that computers from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Vietnam and others have been used in the attacks, he said.
Experts from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are helping Estonia investigate the attacks, Aarelaid said.
Press reports also speculated that tension between the two countries may have resulted in a coordinated campaign by Russia against Estonia. Last month, Estonia irked Russia by moving a Soviet-era World War II memorial of a bronze soldier, sparking protests. Aarelaid dismissed the theory, saying Estonians were also divided on the issue.
A DOS attack involves commanding other computers to bombard a Web site with requests for data, causing the site to stop working. Hackers use botnets -- or groups of computers they've infected with malicious software -- to launch an attack.
It's difficult to trace who controls botnets, as the networks involve compromised computers located around the world.
"If you have an unknown number of attackers with different skills and capabilities, it's quite painful," Aarelaid said.
In Brussels on Monday, Estonia's defense minister, Jaak Aaviksoo, called for the development of a stronger capability to respond to cyber attacks within the European Union.
"Extensive cyber attacks against Estonia show clearly that this matter should be seriously dealt with and relevant information exchange with one another," Aaviksoo said.



- Excel 2010 Cheat Sheet
- Register for this Computerworld Insider Cheat Sheet and gain access to hundreds of premium content articles, guides, product reviews and more.
- Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory
- As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable,...
- Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.
- Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in...
- Top Solutions and Tools to Prevent Devastating Malware
- Custom malware frequently goes undetected. According to Forrester Research, the best way to reduce risk of breach is to deploy file integrity monitoring...
- X-Ray of the PCI Process-4 Proactive Steps
- This white paper from Forrester Research Inc., helps break PCI into understandable components. Security and risk professionals will gain knowledge and insight into...
- Identity Governance: The Business Imperatives
- This white paper describes the business challenges and opportunities that are driving interest in Identity Governance while discussing considerations your organization should make... All Security White Papers
- Live Webcast
Playing Defense: Staying on Top of Your Disaster Recovery Game - When it comes to disaster recovery, rapidly growing data volumes, distributed computing models, and new technologies all combine to present an ever-changing playing...
- Introduction to VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager 5
- Traditional disaster recovery solutions are often too expensive, complex and unreliable to meet business requirements. As a result, IT departments are hesitant to...
- The Top Ten Secrets to Avoiding SAN Performance Problems
- Maintaining peak performance while simultaneously addressing the root cause of SAN errors is challenging. Learn the most common SAN problems and explore new...
- Deduplication Without Compromise
- Go inside Quantum's scalable, high-performance, multi-protocol new DXi deduplication appliances, designed to make backup much more effective. Discover how the new future-proof DXi6700...
- Director of Disk Products Discusses DXi6700
- Discover how the new DXi 6700 series of deduplication appliances provide investment protection and a future-proof feature set, all while delivering fast, scalable,...
- Playing Defense: Staying on Top of Your Disaster Recovery Game
- When it comes to disaster recovery, rapidly growing data volumes, distributed computing models, and new technologies all combine to present an ever-changing playing... All Security Webcasts