Cyber wars may not be relegated to bad Sci-Fi and TV movies any longer. Interestingly, the first strike did not land on the shores of the U.S., where one would expect cyber-terrorists to make their first attempts. Instead, the first large scale war against a countries online assets took place in Estonia.

Estonia

Estonia is a country located in Northern Europe. Other than once being a part of the former Soviet Union, one of this countries biggest differentiators is its heavy reliance on the Internet. Even with a population of just under 1.5 million people it manages to be well ahead of the U.S. in its reliance on online banking and e-government (in the last election the Estonians voted from the comfort of their homes).

This makes Estonia a good case study in where these technologies might eventually lead, but unfortunately it makes it the perfect target for the ire of political extremists and hackers.

Cyber War

eWeek took a look at the story,

While mobs were rioting in the streets of capital city Tallinn, Russian-language Web sites featuring blogs and forums—what I like to refer to as the Russian-speaking blogosphere—came alive with angry messages, followed by instructions on how readers could attack Estonian computers and network infrastructure on their own. The Estonians coined the term “cyber-riot,” and it fits. From this point on, many different kinds of attacks with varying intensity occurred.

Web 2.0 Roundup

Stranger than the location of these attacks were the targets. Military servers were left alone and the civilian infrastructure, including banks and ISPs were the major targets. The question is whether this sort of technological warfare is a sign of things to come and if so, what can we do to protect ourselves?

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