Oh No! Now the hidden weapon for a long time has come out!! I remember
about a discussing I had with someone during AF* Abuja, asking him
about the integrity, security clearance and the importance of the
reliability of ISPs and other Operators. Who vets
who and how is a big question in many countries - any Tom-Dick and
Harry can provide the service yes BUT there is more to that.<br>
<br>
Eagerly waiting to see how this problem will be solved .......sad eh?<br>
<br>
Good day<br>
<br>
Yassin<br>
<br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 21/05/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Anne-Rachel Inné</b> <<a href="mailto:annerachel@gmail.com">annerachel@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<font size="+2"><b>Cyber Assaults on Estonia Typify a New Battle Tactic</b></font><br>
<p><font size="-1">By Peter Finn<br>Washington Post Foreign Service<br>Saturday, May 19, 2007; A01</font></p>
<p><font size="-1"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/18/AR2007051802122_pf.html" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/18/AR2007051802122_pf.html
</a><br></font></p>
<p>TALLINN, Estonia, May 18 -- This small Baltic country, one of the most wired societies in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Europe?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
Europe</a>,
has been subject in recent weeks to massive and coordinated cyber
attacks on Web sites of the government, banks, telecommunications
companies, Internet service providers and news organizations, according
to Estonian and foreign officials here.
</p>
<p>Computer security specialists here call it an unprecedented assault
on the public and private electronic infrastructure of a state. They
say it is originating in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Russia?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
Russia</a>, which is angry over <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Estonia?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Estonia</a>'s recent relocation of a Soviet war memorial. Russian officials deny any government involvement.
</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/NATO?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">NATO </a>alliance and the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/European+Union?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
European Union</a>
have rushed information technology specialists to Estonia to observe
and assist during the attacks, which have disrupted government e-mail
and led financial institutions to shut down online banking.</p>
<p>As societies become increasingly dependent on computer networks that
cross national borders, security experts worry that in wartime, enemies
will attempt to cripple those networks with electronic attacks. The <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/U.S.+Department+of+Homeland+Security?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
Department of Homeland Security </a>has warned that U.S. networks should be secured against <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Al+Qaeda?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
al-Qaeda</a> hackers. Estonia's experience provides a rare chance to observe how such assaults proceed. </p>
<p>"These attacks were massive, well targeted and well organized," Jaak
Aaviksoo, Estonia's minister of defense, said in an interview. They
can't be viewed, he said, "as the spontaneous response of public
discontent worldwide with the actions of the Estonian authorities"
concerning the memorial. "Rather, we have to speak of organized attacks
on basic modern infrastructures."
</p>
<p>The Estonian government stops short of accusing the Russian
government of orchestrating the assaults, but alleges that authorities
in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Moscow?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
Moscow</a>
have shown no interest in helping to end them or investigating evidence
that Russian state employees have taken part. One Estonian citizen has
been arrested, and officials here say they also have identified
Russians involved in the attacks.
</p>
<p>"They won't even pick up the phone," Rein Lang, Estonia's minister of justice, said in an interview.</p>
<p>Estonian officials said they traced some attackers to Internet
protocol (IP) addresses that belong to the Russian presidential
administration and other state agencies in Russia.</p>
<p>"There are strong indications of Russian state involvement," said
Silver Meikar, a member of Parliament in the governing coalition who
follows information technology issues in Estonia. "I can say that based
on a wide range of conversations with people in the security agencies."
</p>
<p>Russian officials deny that claim. In a recent interview, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Moscow+Kremlin?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
Kremlin</a>
spokesman Dmitri Peskov called it "out of the question." Reached Friday
at a Russia-E.U. summit, he reiterated the denial, saying there was
nothing to add.</p>
<p>A Russian official who the Estonians say took part in the attacks
said in an interview Friday that the assertion was groundless. "We know
about the allegations, of course, and we checked our IP addresses,"
said Andrei Sosov, who works at the agency that handles information
technology for the Russian government. His IP address was identified by
the Estonians as having participated, according to documents obtained
by <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/The+Washington+Post+Company?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">The Washington Post</a>.</p>
<p>"Our names and contact numbers are open resources. I am just saying
that professional hackers could easily have used our IP addresses to
spoil relations between Estonia and Russia."</p>
<p>Estonia has a large number of potential targets. The economic
success of the tiny former Soviet republic is built largely on its
status as an "e-society," with paperless government and electronic
voting. Many common transactions, including the signing of legal
documents, can be done via the Internet.
</p>
<p>The attacks began on April 27, a Friday, within hours of the war
memorial's relocation. On Russian-language Internet forums, Estonian
officials say, instructions were posted on how to disable government
Web sites by overwhelming them with traffic, a tactic known as a denial
of service attack.
</p>
<p>The Web sites of the Estonian president, the prime minister,
Parliament and government ministries were quickly swamped with traffic,
shutting them down. Hackers defaced other sites, putting, for instance,
a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Adolf+Hitler?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
Hitler</a> mustache on the picture of Prime Minister Andrus Ansip on his political party's Web site. </p>
<p>The assault continued through the weekend. "It was like an Internet
riot," said Hillar Aarelaid, a lead specialist on Estonia's Computer
Emergency Response Team, which headed the government's defense.
</p>
<p>The Estonian government began blocking Internet traffic from Russia
on April 30 by filtering out all Web addresses that ended in .ru.</p>
<p>By April 30, Aarelaid said, security experts noticed an increasing
level of sophistication. Government Web sites and new targets,
including media Web sites, came under attack from electronic cudgels
known as botnets. Bots are computers that can be remotely commanded to
participate in an attack. They can be business or home computers, and
are known as zombie computers.
</p>
<p>When bots were turned loose on Estonia, Aaviksoo said, roughly 1
million unwitting computers worldwide were employed. Officials said
they traced bots to countries as dissimilar as the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/United+States?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
United States</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/China?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">China</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Vietnam?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
Vietnam</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Egypt?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Egypt</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Peru?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
Peru</a>.</p>
<p>By May 1, Estonian Internet service providers had come under
sustained attack. System administrators were forced to disconnect all
customers for 20 seconds to reboot their networks.</p>
<p>Newspapers in Estonia responded by closing access to their Web sites
to everyone outside the country, as did the government. The sites of
universities and nongovernmental organizations were overwhelmed.
Parliament's e-mail service was shut for 12 hours because of the strain
on servers.
</p>
<p>Foreign governments began to take notice. NATO, the United States
and the E.U. sent information technology experts. "It was a concerted,
well-organized attack, and that's why Estonia has taken it so seriously
and so have we," said Robert Pszczel, a NATO spokesman. Estonia is a
new member of NATO and the E.U.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Federal+Bureau+of+Investigation?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">FBI</a> also provided assistance, according to Estonian officials. The bureau referred a reporter's calls to the
U.S. Embassy in Estonia, which said there was no one available to discuss American assistance to the Baltic State.</p>
<p>On May 9, the day Russia celebrates victory in World War II, a new wave of attacks began at midnight Moscow time.</p>
<p>"It was the Big Bang," Aarelaid said. By his account, 4 million
packets of data per second, every second for 24 hours, bombarded a host
of targets that day.</p>
<p>"Everyone from 10-year-old boys to very experienced professionals
was attacking," he said. "It was like a forest fire. It kept spreading."</p>
<p>By May 10, bots were probing for weaknesses in Estonian banks. They
forced Estonia's largest bank to shut down online services for all
customers for an hour and a half. Online banking remains closed to all
customers outside the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Baltic+States?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Baltic States</a> and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/related-topics.html/Scandinavia?tid=informline" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
Scandinavia</a>, according to Jaan Priisalu, head of the IT risk management group at Hansabank, a major Baltic bank.</p>
<p>"The nature of the latest attacks is very different," said Linnar
Viik, a government IT consultant, "and it's no longer a bunch of zombie
computers, but things you can't buy from the black market," he said.
"This is something that will be very deeply analyzed, because it's a
new level of risk. In the 21st century, the understanding of a state is
no longer only its territory and its airspace, but it's also its
electronic infrastructure.
</p>
<p>"This is not some virtual world," Viik added. "This is part of our
independence. And these attacks were an attempt to take one country
back to the cave, back to the Stone Age."</p><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<p><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6665145.stm" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6665145.stm</a><br></p>
<div>Estonia hit by 'Moscow cyber war' </div><b>Estonia says the
country's websites have been under heavy attack for the past three
weeks, blaming Russia for playing a part in the cyber warfare. </b>
<p>Many of the attacks have come from Russia and are being hosted by
Russian state computer servers, Tallinn says. Moscow denies any
involvement. </p>
<p>Estonia says the attacks began after it moved a Soviet war memorial in Tallinn. The move was condemned by the Kremlin. </p>
<p>A Nato spokesman said the organisation was giving Estonia technical help. </p>
<div>
<p>"In the 21st century it's not just about tanks and artillery," Nato spokesman James Appathurai told BBC News. </p>
<p>"We have sent one of our experts at the request of the Estonian authorities to help them in their defence." </p>
<p><b>'Paperless government' </b></p>
<p>Estonia wants to put the issue at the top of Friday's EU-Russia summit agenda. </p>
</div>
<div>
<p>The head of IT security at Estonia's defence ministry, Mikhail
Tammet, told BBC News that the attacks had affected a range of
government websites, including those of the parliament and governmental
institutions. </p>
<p>He said the country was particularly vulnerable as much of its government was run online. </p>
<p>"Estonia depends largely on the internet. We have e-government,
government is so-called paperless... all the bank services are on the
internet. We even elect our parliament via the internet," Mr Tammet
said. </p>
<p>The memorial's removal also triggered riots amongst mostly ethnic
Russian living in Estonia, during which one person was killed and more
than 150 injured. </p>
<p>Estonians say the memorial symbolised Soviet occupation of the
Baltic state. Russians say it is a tribute to those who fought the
Nazis. </p>
<p><b>Spam avalanche </b></p>
<p>The Estonian government says its state and commercial websites -
including a number of banks - are being bombarded by mass requests for
information - overwhelming their computer servers. </p>
</div>
<div>
<p>Targets of the so-called denial-of-service attacks have also
included the Estonian foreign and defence ministries and leading
newspapers and banks. </p>
<p>In some cases, officials have simply blocked access to the servers from outside Estonia, to prevent them from being attacked. </p>
<p>"A couple weeks ago when the whole thing started we had some
problems in our online services and then our mail server was absolutely
inundated with spam e-mails as well," Estonian journalist Aet Suvari
told the BBC. </p>
<p>"In the past few weeks it has been quite difficult for some
government officials to read their e-mails on the web, to get access to
the banks." </p>
<p>The defence ministry says that the cyber attacks come from all over
the world, but some have been hosted by Russian state servers. </p>
<p>It says that instructions on how to carry out cyber warfare are circulating in Russian on Russian websites. </p>
<p>Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip has directly accused Russia of
being responsible, pointing the blame at the Russian government. </p>
<p>Nato and EU internet experts are all helping to track down the
culprits, but Estonian officials say that they have had no co-operation
from Russia. </p>
<p><b>'Internet pioneer' </b></p>
<p>While technical experts say that the initial wave of attacks came
from official structures in Russia, they now say it might be very
difficult to track the perpetrators down, the BBC's Steven Eke says. </p>
</div>
<div>He says that experts point out that botnets - the term given to
the groups of computers that mount denial-of-service attacks - can be
located across several countries, or even continents. <p>Russia - which has a large community of hackers and computer
virus-writers - has been accused of mounting such attacks before in the
US and Ukraine. </p>
<p>Moscow denies any involvement in the internet attacks on Estonia. </p>
<p>Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the BBC that the allegations were "completely untrue". </p>
</div>Story from BBC NEWS:<br><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6665145.stm" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6665145.stm
</a><br><br>Published: 2007/05/17 15:21:15 GMT<br><br>© BBC MMVII</blockquote>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>AfrICANN mailing list<br><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:AfrICANN@afrinic.net">AfrICANN@afrinic.net</a><br><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/africann" target="_blank">
https://lists.afrinic.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/africann</a><br><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>c/o DFID-Nigeria<br>No. 10 Bobo Street<br>Maitama<br>Abuja<br>Nigeria<br><br>Skype: yassin mshana<br>Mobile: +234-803 970 5117