Cyberwar 1.0

The mainstream press has been reporting on what could very well be the world's first cyberwar. A diplomatic conflict between Estonia and Russia over a bronze statute has resulted in what seems to be a series of coordinated attacks against Estonian institutions. Denial-of-service attacks have brought down websites belonging to news sources, the parliament and presidency, political parties, banks and telecomms firms. The sites were overwhelmed by requests from Russia, which prompted the blocking of foreign IP addresses to the affected sites. There has not been any indication that the attacks come from the Russian government, after all, Russia has a long-standing hacker tradition, but it is interesting to witness the disruptive power of concerted attacks against a national target.

No word as to how many bits have lost their lives in the conflict.