Russian Cyber Attack on Georgia, Government Websites Down

Russian Cyber Attack on Georgia, Government Websites Down

Russia has been accused of attacking Georgian government websites in a cyber war to accompany their military bombardment. In a statement released using a replacement website built on Google's blog service, the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said: "A cyber warfare campaign by Russia is seriously disrupting many Georgian websites, including that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

Internet security watchdog, Shadowserver Foundation, has confirmed the attack: "We are now seeing new attacks against .ge sites - www.parliament.ge and president.gov.ge are currently being hit with http floods." Warnings have also been issued by Georgian officials saying that websites that do appear online may be hijacked and bogus.

Barack Obama, the Democratic US Presidential candidate, has demanded Moscow halt the internet attacks as well as observing a ceasefire on the ground.

This is very interesting that Russia is the very first country to launch a full out cyber attack before Military Action. They took out all of the banks. Just goes to show that War is gonna hit home in ways that the ordinary person will see.

If we attack a country in the future maybe we will have problems with our financial instituation on the short term.

Could this be a good enough reason to start controling the internet as well. I feel it could. I always think, why do they let us bypass all their media control measures by allowing us to talk openly and freely about current situations on the internet. I dont think they realised how much of a pain in the ass the net would be to them, now I feel that this is the first step towards controling the information we get on the internet under the guise of cyberwar. I could be wrong of course. Star for the report!

I can see the government making up a new act to moniter and "secure" the internet. That's going to be hard with all the hackers out there, though.

This is very interesting that Russia is the very first country to launch a full out cyber attack before Military Action. They took out all of the banks. Just goes to show that War is gonna hit home in ways that the ordinary person will see.

The US did this against Iraqi's air defense network computers. Information warfare prior to bombing has been around for years.

HTTP floods? Tip for Georgia - use a firewall with packet inspection on port 80. Limit each packet to an average packet request size and block all requests with large UDP packets streaming into port 80.

I actually wrote an HTTP Bomber back in 2002 that attacked port 80. I only used a couple of times though, but did bring the server down each time.

Couple of things,

Jetxnet, your avatar is that ignorant, im surprsied your not being banned from this site.

Im certain you have a following though, but thats another sad matter.
Second, im pretty sure that Georgia can setup a simple firewall and configure it properly.
Your talking about Russia here, not some backyard highschool hacker.

This is a scary situation, shutting down Banks?
If someone wanted to really screw up western society, IE China, imagine the chaos if banks shut down?

What would you do if your ATM card worked no where, and all you had was the funds in your wallet, petrol in your car, and food in your pantry?

We've put all our eggs in one basket, cyber warfare is the next 911.

Second, im pretty sure that Georgia can setup a simple firewall and configure it properly.

You'd be very surprised there Agichop. Most do not know, that's why they pick port 80. It is the one port Firewalls do not protect.

The most expensive firewalls allow for "stateful packet inspection" which is necessary to thwart an attack of this type by dropping packets that should not be let through (packets in excessive size that port nuker programs use etc.).

I used to work with Spawar (DoD) and can tell you that Russia is doing nothing that a kid in their basement couldn't do. It's just they're using more resources to do it with, that's all.





[edit on 27-8-2008 by jetxnet]

Oh NOES! A government WEB SITE is down! *GASP*

More propaganda, so when they drop the internet here, everyone will think it's because of "terrorists" or foreign governments "waging war" against us.

Lookie here people! THE IMPORTANT STUFF IS NEVER ON A PUBLIC NETWORK! EVER! Any government worth it's salt has it's OWN fiber/lines/satellites that carry the important stuff. It never, ever, gets put on the public internet. I cannot emphasize that too much.

Anything having to do with control/operation of military hardware is never put on the public internet.