Cyber-attacks against Estonia

The BBC reports that "cyber-pirates" have attacked a wide variety of websites and services in Estonia.

Estonia, he said, depended largely on the internet because of the country's "paperless government" and web-based banking.

"If these services are made slower, we of course lose economically," he added.

While the government in Tallinn has not blamed the Russian authorities directly for the attacks, its foreign ministry has published a list of IP addresses "where the attacks were made from".

The alleged offenders include addresses in the Russian government and presidential administration.

Link to the full story though the link in the title. A Russian government spokesman denied that the government was involved in the attacks and noted that IP addresses can be faked. The hacker attacks followed the Estonian removal of a Russian war memorial, and that move also involved riots. What is interesting about the attacks, to me, is that they point up the increasing vulnerability of governments and corporations to hacker attacks, and the low level of support required for such attacks. Those who read The Handmaiden's Tale, by Margaret Attwood, may remember that the beginning of the religious right's overthrow of the government in the U.S. in that dystopian vision, began with seizing control of electronic funds transfers. I'm sorry, I get the willies when I think about that book!