Cases of cyber attacks - Case Study Example

? Cases of Cyber Attacks Cases of Cyber Attacks The historical landscape of how wars are fought changed drastically when Information Technology was used by developed countries to attack one another. Instead of bullets and guns, critical websites of government and news agencies are hacked or defaced to express political statement and display of IT power. In this paper, a comparison of three cases of cyber terrorism would be discussed to enable people understand the nature, power and threat caused by cyber attacks. Likewise, the governments’ initiatives to response to similar threats in the future are also included in this report. The case of the cyber attack in Estonia. In 2007, Estonia experienced a massive DDOS attack which paralyzed most of its government websites. Although Russian authorities denied the attack, the Estonian government highly believed that it was from Russia. The attack happened after a political issue which involved removing Estonia’s transfer of a Soviet war memorial in Talinn to a military cemetery ( A cyber riot, The Economist.com). The cyber attack is considered a DDoS or Distributed Denial Of Service. According to searchsecurity, techtarget.com, DDoS happens when “ a multitude of compromised systems attack a single target, thereby causing a denial of service; hence, the target system is forced to shut down which prevents legitimate users to receive service”. The main targets were banking institutions, schools, government websites and other institutions; however, the first launch targeted government sites. The government’s response was to shutdown all mobile phone networks as well as banking systems which really caused a lot of inconvenience to the public. The event was catastrophic enough to prompt NATO security experts to head to Estonia and investigate on the matter. A youth group known as Nashi meaning “Our” claimed the attack through its spokes person Konstantin Goloskokov which was funded by private business groups ( Shachtman, Wired.com). Estonia has reacted by creating a Cyber Defense League composed of specialists. It also came up with a Cyber Security Strategy in 2008 that would provide as framework for improving its defense against cyber attacks. Ossetia’s cyber-attack on Georgia in 2008 In 2008, Russia was accused by Ossetia for hacking its government and commercial websites. The attack on Georgia was believed to be a part of Russia’s military support in South Ossetia. The target of the attack included government websites according to a report on smh.com.au, the cyber attack included: 1. The Georgian Parliament main website has been defaced. The website content showed images of Adolf Hitler which replaced the picture of then Prime Minister Saakashvili; 2. The servers of Azerbaijani Day was disabled; As a result, some of the government’s website like Ministry of Foreign Affairs created a temporary site on the Google Blogger to safely disseminate information. Even news agency servers were attacked that time which really alarmed other countries. The main culprit of the attack was South Ossetia Hack Crew which came from a group of programmers from Russia. Today.az reported that “Russian intelligence services “were responsible for the attack (today.az,2008). The cyber attack is similar to the DDoS attack that happened in Estonia in 2007. As aforementioned, a DDoS attack would force the target to shut down which denies the legitimate users to access the site. After the attack, different governments such as Ukraine, Poland and Estonia helped Georgia by mirroring the web pages, it was a historic moment in history when Estonia came to the aid of this country (Schachtman, 2008 July). Indeed, Georgia learned a valuable lesson like Estonia which prompted its government to focus on cyber security measures. The National Security Council of Georgia created a Computer Emergency Response Team that can immediately respond to cyber attacks. Similarly, it has been enhancing security measures by continuously monitoring government websites including analyzing incidents and reporting them for immediate action. US State Department Cyber Attack 2006 In 2006, the a section of the US State Department dealing with China and North Korea experienced a large-scale computer break-in for many weeks ( State Dept. Computers Hacked,cbsnews.com). According to newspaper reports, the attack came in the form of stealing very sensitive information that were related to matters regarding East Asia section. Additionally, the hackers normally went through backdoor to be able to return and get more information. The attack was only discovered in mid-June of 2006 after a few weeks of irregular network traffic. The attack is considered as “attacks from password crackers, key loggers and Malware which are usually delivered from surfing the web and BOT infection; hence, very difficult to detect” (Types of cyber-attacks, foxbusiness.com). In such cases, anti-virus software are not applicable at all. Nevertheless, only the unclassified system was accessed so not much damage was done except for inconvenience on the part of the users and some diplomats. It was obvious form the very start that the attack was politically motivated because only that section was targeted. China was a suspect in the said case but it was hard to prove the real source of the attack. The basis for the accusation against China was a Pentagon report stating that cyber-attacks are part of China’s policy of aggression according to the news report. The first reaction to the attack was to ask employees to change their passwords and temporarily disable the secure socket layers that hackers often find vulnerable. After the said incident, not much can be heard from the US State Department except that they are beefing up their security measures against such attacks. Summary and Recommendation There is no doubt that all three cases of cyber terrorism are threat to the safety of a nation or state. Estonia and Georgia’s DDoS attacks were similar since it aimed at bringing the government websites down; however, NATO and other allied countries came to assist these countries. The US State Department East Asia section cyber attack was different, it was insidious as hackers stole unclassified information that can be used for political propaganda or even blackmail. Yet, all three cyber attacks indicate that some countries or group of people can wield much damage if they want too, anytime. Estonia and Georgia have learned their lessons which prompted their authorities to build a defense strategy against such attacks. Even the US State Department beefed up its defense after realizing that there are loopholes in their security. All three cases have equal effort expended in preparing themselves for an attack; however, Estonia’s preparation seems most substantial since it has worked on building defense immediately after the event. Georgia has only adopted a National Defense Strategy last year while the US State Department remains vulnerable due to the open ports accessible whenever employees are online. There is no 100% security after all,there is only the probability of minimizing the risks when an attack happens. References Estonia and Russia: A cyber-riot | The Economist. (2007, May 10). The Economist - World News, Politics, Economics, Business & Finance. Retrieved May 14, 2011, from http://www.economist.com/node/9163598?story_id=9163598 Lagorio, C. (2006, July 11). State Department Computers Hacked. CBS News.com, p. 1. Retrieved May 15, 2011, from fttp://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/11/ national/ main1794152.shtml?CMP=ILC-SearchStories Today.Az (2008, September 11). Russian intelligence services undertook large scale attack against Day.Az server.TODAY.AZ. Retrieved May 13, 2011, from http://www. today.az/news/politic Shachtman, N. (2008, July 11). Estonia, Google Help ‘Cyberlocked’ Georgia (Updated) | Danger Room | Wired.com. Wired.com . Retrieved May 15, 2011, from http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/08/civilge-the-geo/ Shachtman, N. (2009, March 11). Kremlin Kids: We Launched the Estonian Cyber War | Danger Room | Wired.com. Wired.com . Retrieved May 14, 2011, from http://www.wired. com/dangerroom/2009/03/pro-kremlin-gro/ Vanegas, C. (2011, January 26). Types of Cyber Attacks and How to Recognize Them - Fox Small Business Center .Home - Fox Small Business Center . Retrieved May 15, 2011, from http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/technology-web/2011/01/26/types-cyber-attacks-recognize/ What is distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS)? - Definition from Whatis.com. (2001, June 3). Information Security information, news and tips - SearchSecurity.com. Retrieved May 14, 2011, from http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/distributed-denial-of-service-attack Read More