defensive and offensive cyber operations

Introduction

Since the 1990s, many nations’ economies, societies, and militaries all depend heavily on the internet. Private businesses, regular people, and state agencies have all turned to the internet due to its rapid development. But now, this poses a problem and raises concerns for national security. Cyberspace is being used by various hackers, national cyber armies, and cyber gangs for their operations. Although many cyberattacks in the 1990s were carried out by amateurs honing their abilities, in the twenty-first century more experts have started cyberwars. The cyberattacks against the state by Georgia and Estonia will be the main topic of this article. Additionally, this paper will highlight aspects of the method and effect of the attack, and the response by each of the two countries.

Method of Attack

The cases of Georgia and Estonia present similar scenarios of massive cyber-attacks against the state, considering the fact that the perpetrator was the same. In Georgia, the cyber-attacks were carried in two phases on July 2008; in the first step, the Russian hackers concentrated on government websites and Georgian news. Since the Georgian networks were vulnerable to attacks, Russians used botnets to conduct Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). In the second phase, the targets were financial and educational institutions and businesses (Espiner, 2008). Additionally, there was massive spamming of public email and web defacement operations. As a result, the government of Georgia could not communicate with the world using the internet.

On the contrary, Estonia had heavily invested and dependent on the internet since almost the whole country was covered by Wi-Fi Internet. The cyber-attacks took place in 2007 with the DDoS attacks targeting government ministries, major banks, and several political parties. Moreover, the Russian hackers were able to disable the credit cards and automatic teller machines. It is important to recognize that the massive cyber-attacks in Estonia have a composition of both Russian professional hackers and patriotic hackers (Herzog, 2011). However, the final evaluation after the attack indicated that the damages were relatively small. In essence, Russia was testing its capabilities in cyber warfare and influencing the decision to remove the statue of Bronze Soldier of Tallinn.

Overall Effect of the Attacks

In Estonia, the minister of defense could not log onto the Reform Party website, which was the first target of the Russian hackers. In addition, Estonia could not inform the rest of the world of what was happening in their country as they had to block all international incoming international traffic. When the hackers shifted their attack on the Estonian banking system, the major banks had to shut down their internet-based operations to minimize the losses incurred. Over the course of three weeks, the cyber-attacks crippled dozens of corporate and government sites (Traynor, 2007). In a country that was highly dependent on the internet, the cyber-attacks had devastating effects on the political, social, and economic sectors.

The two-phased cyber-attack in Georgia had no serious effects as compared to Estonian cyber warfare. The main aim of this attack was to demonstrate the fragility of the internet, to cut off Georgian society and authorities from any information; and to inflict damages to their economic system. As such, Georgian government was unable to communicate with the world using the internet, and a majority of governmental websites were inoperative. Russia was against the integration of Georgia with other states such as Saakashvili; therefore, attacking Georgia would persuade other countries to stop integrating with a weak and economically crippled Georgia (Espiner, 2008). However, all the aims of the cyber warfare were not successful, especially due to aid from allies.

Responses in Georgia and Estonia

In addition, the attack on Estonia led to NATO enhancing its cyber-war capabilities in addition to establishing the alliance’s cyber defense in 2008. Also, this served as a motivation for Estonian government to call on the European Union to make cyber-attacks a criminal offense. The FBI also formed a permanent base of computer crime expert in Estonia to help fight global threats against computer systems. Eventually, the Estonian government removed the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn and invested in cyber security. By contrast, in the wake of massive disruptions of the internet websites, Georgian authorities tried to filter Russian IP addresses. Later, they asked allies such as the United States, and Poland for help in relocating the Georgians servers (Reich, Weinstein, Wild, & Cabanlong, 2010). As a result, the government websites were restored, and the Georgian society had access to information. Additionally, the United States promised financial help to the government of Georgia.

Conclusion

Both Estonian and Georgian cyber-attacks have similar political backgrounds, as well as the methods used by the aggressor. In the same way, there were some differences such as the aim of the attack and the results. However, both attacks represent the potential of massive cyber warfare to paralyze structures of the states. In the era of advanced technology and innovations, cyber threats could not be underestimated in the future. Similar actions will be more effective and would take place even with greater success. Therefore, it is of the essence to ensure that countries prioritize cyber security, especially with sensitive sectors of the government. Nations and organizations should focus on creating a resilient defense. Consecutively, they should educate users and managers of IT systems about the best practices to counter the threat of a cyber-attack.

References

Espiner, T. (2008). Georgia accuses Russia of coordinated cyberattack. Retrieved on July 18, 2017 from: http://www.cnet.com/news/georgia-accuses-russia-of-coordinated-cyberattack/

Herzog, S. (2011). Revisiting the Estonian cyber attacks: Digital threats and multinational responses. Journal of Strategic Security, 4(2), 49-60. Retrieved on July 17, 2017 from: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol4/iss2/4/?utm_source=scholarcommons.usf.edu%2Fjss%2Fvol4%2Fiss2%2F4&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages

Reich, P. C., Weinstein, S., Wild, C., & Cabanlong, A. (January 01, 2010). Cyber warfare: A review of theories, law, policies, actual incidents - and the dilemma of anonymity. European Journal of Law and Technology, 1(2), 1-58.

Traynor, I. (2007). Russia accused of unleashing cyber war to disable Estonia. The Guardian. Retrieved on July 18, 2017 from:  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/may/17/topstories3.russia