Cyberattacks on Estonia (a.k.a Estonian Cyberwar) refers to a series of cyber attacks that began April 27, 2007 that swamped Estonian websites of Estonian parliament, banks, ministries, newspapers and broadcasters, amid that country's row with Russia about moving a Soviet-era war memorial.^[1] April 27 is the 117th day of the year (118th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 248 days remaining. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... Riigikogu is the name of the national parliament of Estonia. ...

By nature attacks that had any influence on general public were generally distributed denial of service attacks ranging from single individuals using various low-tech methods like ping floods to expensive rentals of botnets usually used for spam distribution. Spamming of bigger news portals commentaries and defacement and posting of a fake press release of the ruling Reform parties website also occurred. A denial-of-service attack (also, DoS attack) is an attack on a computer system or network that causes a loss of service to users, typically the loss of network connectivity and services by consuming the bandwidth of the victim network or overloading the computational resources of the victim system. ... Botnet is a jargon term for a collection of software robots, or bots, which run autonomously. ...

The case is studied intensively by many countries and military planners, as it is regarded as the first well-funded and well-organized cyberwarfare on a country level.^[2] It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Cyberwar. ...

Some observers reckoned that the onslaught on Estonia was of a sophistication not seen before. Linnar Viik, Estonia's internet guru, said “Particular 'ports' of particular mission-critical computers in, for example, the telephone exchanges were targeted. Packet 'bombs' of hundreds of megabytes in size would be sent first to one address, then another.” Although the hackers behind the cyberwarfare hasn't been unveiled, some believed that such efforts exceed the skills of individual activists or even organised crime; they require the co-operation of a state and a large telecoms firm.^[2] This article is about a unit of data measurement. ... The term Hackers can refer to several things: Hacker - a type of person interested in exploration, usually of a computer or electrical engineering background. ... Organized crime is crime carried out systematically by formal criminal organizations. ... Co-operation refers to the practice of people or greater entities working in common with commonly agreed-upon goals and possibly methods, instead of working separately in competition. ... Telecommunication is the extension of communication over a distance. ...

References

1. ^ Ian Traynor, 'Russia accused of unleashing cyberwar to disable Estonia", The Guardian, May 17, 2007
2. ^ ^{a b} Cyberwarfare:'Newly nasty, May 24th 2007, The Economist

The Guardian is a British newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. ... May 17 is the 137th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (138th in leap years). ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... The Economist is a weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd and edited in London, UK. It has been in continuous publication since September 1843. ...

See also

• Bronze Soldier of Tallinn
• Estonia urges firm EU, NATO response to new form of warfare: cyber-attacks
• Massive DDoS attacks target Estonia; Russia accused
• Cyberattack on Estonia stirs fear of 'virtual war'
• Estonia accuses Russia of 'cyberattack'
• Virtual harassment, but for real
• Digital Fears Emerge After Data Siege in Estonia
• EU urged to deepen cooperation after Estonia cyber-attacks
• The cyber pirates hitting Estonia
• Estonia hit by 'Moscow cyber war'