Here we have another highly publicized act of "cyberwar" (or at least "cyberattack"). In this case, 300 websites were defaced in protest against Lithuania's ban on both Nazi and Soviet symbols. It seems some Russian hackers don't like being equated with Hitler.
From TrustedSource:In what appears to be an imitation of last year's high profile attacks on Estonian national cyber infrastructure, Russian nationalist hackers once again demonstrated their displeasure at the actions of another Baltic country's political leaders by defacing over 300 Lithuanian websites this week, including the website of the ruling Social-Democratic party.
***
Juozas Olekas, Lithuanian minister of defense, has called the defacements a 'cyberattack on Lithuania,' while the Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas, who is visiting in the US this week, called the situation "very serious" and declared that he would to raise it in his discussions with U.S. officials. [From TrustedSource - Blog - Cyberattack on Lithuania]
Is this really an "cyberattack on Lithuania?" Well, yes, but if we're going to label this a nationstate-scale action (which is tantamount to calling it cyberwar), then we might as well call the Microsoft defacements acts of terrorism.
Yes, these are attacks, but this isn't the national emergency that the media (and the Lithuanian minister of defense) would like us to believe. This is nothing like last year's cyberattack on Estonia, where critical infrastructure (the viability of the network itself) was targeted.
This really isn't very different than other acts of hacktivism, which has a history going back into the 80's? Does the fact that the attacks come from Russia make a difference? If they were British of American, would this be a hacktivist cause? China?
Yes, this is bad. Yes, the culprits should be prosecuted. But lets avoid talking about it as an act of international aggression. It's the Internet; even a flamewar is international.
Leave a comment