Russia's Cyber Assault on little Estonia

[Former Estonian KGB Headquarters. They cemented over the basement windows, so you couldn't hear the shrieks when you walked by. Photo by Shel ]

You could not miss the statue if you were in Estonia.During my brief visit, the bronze monument to a Red Army soldier, erected by occupying Russians in 1947 seems to be where all roads passed by. The Russians said it was to memorialize Russia's liberation of estonia from the Nazis.  The Estonians saw it as the symbol of 50 years of recent Soviet oppression and seeing as it is now their country, they decided to move it to a less conspicuous locale.

They were, perhaps, insensitive in how they handled it, moving it abruptly at night, thus pissing off not just the considerable Russian population in Estonia but the Russian government as well. Now, all Hell has broken out, with riots and military threats and the Estnian Embassy in Russia under siege.

Pretty much ignored in the US, the incident and resulting escalations has been big news in parts of Europe and the lead story in Russia three days running. There has been talk of reigniting the Cold War because Estonia, the smallest and most technologically advanced of the former Soviet Bloc, is a NATO ally and the US is bound to defend allies against attack if it should ever come to that.

While tanks are not imminently running across any borders just yet, Russia has most decidedly been attempting to intimidate, frustrate and incapacitate its tiny neighbor. Perhaps the most effective ofi ts arsenal has been cyber-hacking, which for brief periods last week cut off online communications inside and outside the Estonian government and denied the rest of the world access to much of Estonia online.

Tim Watson's Dark Reading reported many government sites including Parliament, the office of the prime minister and even the police department were unreachable online for several days "after hackers launched denial-of-service attacks that rendered many of their sites useless."

It turns out those hackers were working on Russian government computers.

Estonia's Justice Minister Rein Lang followed the IP addresses to Moscow, where he ascertained the smoking cyberguns were in official Kremlin hands, the independent Baltic News Service [BNS] reported. The BNS also said there had been malicious attempts to bring down Estonia's data communications network, which would cut off exchanges between state institutions and agencies. Estonia was fairly quick in restoring its sites, but to defend itself, it had to temporarily cut off foreign access to all Estonian sites, turning itself into digital island.

Russians also attempted multiple assaults on private sites as well, including Delfi, Estonia's leading web portal. Rate.ee, an Estonian social network site doing business in Russia reported that public speaking invitations at Russian events had been abruptly withdrawn.

Using cyber assaults against Estonia could be devastating. Some 95 percent of the country enjoys free and ubiquitous access. When the Soviet Empire finally released Estonia from under its yoke in 1993, Estonia had virtually no legacy commerce to speak of, so it began building an infrastructure from scratch, focusing efforts on what was the newest way to do business--the Internet. Today, Estonia is among world leaders in internet data encryption, e-commerce transactions, e-gambling.  The nation's infrastucture and economics are internet dependent. it has a healthy economy with full employment.

Estonia's government is among the world's most internet interactive.  In tallinn, you can vote from your home via the Internet. If you choose, you can talk back to the head of the tax department. Most people have free Internet connection at home, but if you do not, it's pretty much free and ubiquitous. Government officials universally boast that they use the Internet to serve, not control.

[Tallinn President Toomas Ives in his office, October 2006. Photo by Shel.]

When I interviewed President Toomas Ilves, who performed bravely last week, standing up to the Russians, the former Columbia University professor madeclear that Internet technology was intended primarily for people to "take information and back opinion." Entrepreneurs seem to have remarkable access to  government officials. Skype COO Stem Tamkivi told me how he could call up any senior official in the country to discuss Skype's needs. His was not implying Skype had special clout, but was emphasizing people's access to government. Mart Laar, who served twice as prime minister, fantasized to me about his using the Internet to eliminate Parliament, letting citizens to argue and vote directly on critical issues once weekly.

I'm of the opinion the countries that do business with ecah other rarely invade each other.  Business people I know there see great potential and the recent fracas has to be more than a bit of a setback in that direction.

Skype officials would not speak to me for attribution on this subject, but conceded to me they had pretty much tapped Estonia's pool of technology talent and would love to import Russian and Ukrainian talent, an idea not embraced lovingly last october by government or fellow Estonians. "People here think we've had enough Russians in this country," I was told.

My friend Allan Martinson, founder of Martinson Trigon Venture Partners , A VC firm doing business in both the Baltic states Russia bases his strategy on area business synergies. Objective, in every conversation, I've had with him, he expressed fears the situation is worsening and are bringing in a new Cold War.

" Doing business always helps to understand the other. But I am afraid it will be increasingly difficult. We are already getting unpleasant signals... . Many things are put on hold to see how the situation evolves. I am afraid the Russian government will use administrative pressure to keep Estonian-related business out of Russia," he told me.

[Estonian schoolgirl in uniform, sitting in 800-year-old doorway, online on a Mac. Photo by Shel.]

It seems to me, that like most conflicts, culture clash is at the core. Estonia is a bottom up country with an accessible government. Russia's is not.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB operative has an apparent penchant for accelerating hostilities with the west whenever an important Russian election looms. He is not a bottom up guy. He seems to enjoy making his neighboring members of the former Soviet Union nervous with little reminders of what Russia is capabe of doing to them.

Estonians do not need reminding. It is less than 15 years since the Russians left.  The landmarks are still there.  The cultural quirks remains. Anyone over age 30 has an unpleasant personal story to tell about the occupation.

And that goes back to the statue, which until its recent relocation, served to remind Estonians, day-after-day that freedom and security are often delicate things that can easily be lost. They do not see the Russians as liberators from the Nazis, not for one minute.

In fact, Russia invaded Estonian for the first time in 1939, a full year before the Nazis pushed the Russians out. Stalin's Red Army was not screwing around.  They sent in 100,000 soldiers, one for every 10 Estonians.

When the Russians wrested conrol of Estonia back again in 1944, it was immediately clear it was an occupation built to last and it did for more than 50 years. Estonians recall it as a harsher occupation than the Nazis meted out. The Soviets assaulted the country's culture. In two raids executed on two separate nights, the Soviets gathered up a total of 100,000 Estonians, many of them the nation's brightest and boldest. Some were deported to Siberia or elsewhere in Russia. Others were just dragged into the woods and shot.

The Soviets then exported about 100,000 loyal Russians into Estonia to serve as occupation  gatekeepers, bureaucrats and, of course, "citizen observers. Russians still remain there, comprising the bulk of the country's 400,000 non-Estonian residents. There has been extremely little assimilation between cultures.

Sorry for the historic digression, but it's relevant to today and I am writing this because I think what is going on is more relevant than most people realize. Cyber hacking is one thing, but saber rattling is also starting to be heard--or maybe it's just old-fashioned bullying.

The vice chairman of the Russian parliament last week suggested Russia organize a major military campaign at its Estonian border.  Speaking happily on the record, he said some soldiers may "mistakenly" go into Estonia and destroy historic and cultural landmarks, then withdraw, "after which we will apologize, of course."  The Estonian Embassy in Moscow has been virtually under siege, surrounded by angry Russians, rumored to be getting paid to hurl rocks and epitaphs at the Embassy staff and their families.

In Estonia, the moving of the bronze Russian in Tallinn has led to unprecedented riots.  Shouting, "Russia! Russia!" looters have assaulted Estonian liquor stores and raided the racks of Gucci and Amani shops. There have been over 1,000 arrests and at least one death. No one is optimistic that the worst has already occurred.

Elsewhere in Russian news last week was a report of the Russians bulldozing yet another Soviet- statue into smithereens. Perhaps, little Estonia should have been more forceful than the polite relocation it had intended.

Comments

[Connie Reece]

Shel, thanks for bringing this alarming but important, story to our attention. Cyber-hacking as a prelude to aggression is a truly scary scenario.

[robin gurney]

An excellent post. We expressed it as Cybertanks on the front lawn.

Propaganda is giving some moral cowards excuses not to think here in EU & Russia right now and so I would urge you (the reader) to investigate and address the issues in Estonia and how they will or should impact Russia-EU summit where Russia’s WTO accession is likely to top the agenda, thus affecting “us all”.

A US connection is an upcoming meeting (and recent one) of US (Bush) and Estonian (Ilves) leaders. Senate has approved support for Estonia but Americans need (please) to further spread the word of whats occurring.

Regarding this DDOS attack strategy there is the Cybertanks in Tallinn argument and the Jonathan Zittrain approach which comes in the form of restricted access on demand and then there is the Net neutrality debate about access to the Internet -an issue debated in many places including The Economist.

These two approaches are a matter for the EU Commission policy makers.

There is also a threat that Net Neutrality could be removed because of over reaction to the use of the Internet in the 'war against terrorism'.

In the meantime dependence on Internet Protocol is becoming embedded in EU society and economy.

As Angela Merkel reflects on a Russian cybertank on EU territory she might contemplate which assets are under attack - perm one or all four: sovereignty, territory, resource, or ideology....

I could go on…but please read and link to http://www.altex-marketing.com/category/estonia-russia/
and http://leverwealth.blogspot.com/
This comment includes mixed thoughts and comments of David Phillips, Edward Lucas (reported via David) and Robin Gurney

[Laurie Morrow]

Dear Mr. Israel,

Thank you -- I am genuinely amazed how little attention this story is being given by the media. Your post is superb, and will, I hope, spark some interest. This is a story not about a statue, but about human freedom --

I don't think there will be a tanks-in-the-streets invasion, a la 1950s Hungary -- not because Putin wouldn't like to, but because he doesn't need to. Between cutting of the Estonians' oil and coal and, in particular, cyberwar tactics, the Russians can gravely weaken and, I fear, destroy the Estonian economy. How very terrible that this should happen --and that it should be ignored by the American press.

Thank you for your fine work.

Cordially,

Laurie Morrow

[/pd]

Shel, there was chatter of this in the FD lists and other SecCon forums. What is lacking is the motive. A full blown DoS can be negated by creating a 'digital island'. Secondly, moving to point IP directly to a Russian government computer could be ploy by the blackhatters.

There is more then meets the eye here. Maybe they (Russians) were testing full blown DoS attacks against infrastructure and chose a small little country close to them for pen testing :)-

What happens if the same is moved into a full blown cyberwar into the EU's /US zones ? We are digital by nature and there is no denying the fact that there is risks all over. The question will remain when things erupt into a complete cyberwar ?

and yes, this has not got the attention it deserved by other bloggers / MSM' !!

[Peeter Marvet]

Shel - thanks for covering the issue, just a couple of remarks.

There are cyber-attacks and Estonia has had to shut off .gov sites and some other resources from outside world but inside everything is up and running, news sites are talking about "new servers per day" and rushing in scaling solutions planned for next two years (postimees.ee tells weekly visitors up 30%, non-attack pageviews up 300%).

Being visible is important in info war, so the first solutions were to keep net-heavy Estonia up&running internally with quick hacks to supply outside world, currently organizations seem to be working on second generation of solutions. Yes, somebody should have prepared for everything, specially inffing outside world... but as net is evolving quickly more important is the will and ability to troubleshoot ad hoc. cert.ee tells that while the attacks have been stepping up daily the problems are actually going down - a lot of optimization & fixing is giving results.

And... most of Estonians pay for internet at home. Of course, everybody here is happy to share their internet with guests so this may have caused the impression it is free :-)

But as Robin points the net neutrality is something that needs a lot of help. Our minister of justice Rein Lang has been quoted today saying Estonia has too many sites offering possibility to comment anonymously and last time he talked about the subject he wanted to put responsibility on service providers - something that has been specially avoided both in US and EU. In my opinion the problem is both .gov and mainstream media not understanding the basics of social software and not providing something that could be really considered as listening to citizens. Sometimes a solution that looks like a communication channel and can be presented as one to a visitor might in fact not provide anything above the noise level...

[agamus]

Thank you shel, for bringing a gripping and concise report of the current situation in Estonia. I am in San Diego,Ca and you're absolutely right about the lack of media coverage in the US about this assault on a fellow NATO member. As a European I am delighted to hear that Estonia has a booming economy and the foresight to distribute internet connections over large swathes of the population. They are clearly a vibrant and creative culture and should be protected and cherished as an ally. Russian agression like the sort we see demonstrated in this case cannot be tolerated from a state that is slipping in to authoritarian regression.

I am very concerned about the stand off that is building between the West and Russia as it is very unclear to me what the purpose of this bellicose posturing is.

In response to the previous post I am sorry to learn that the government is trying to challenge net neutrality and place responsibility on the ISP for postings. The answer to this problem is to have a governement that has sufficient self belief to withstand the good with the bad in an open democracy.

[tomas]

we should ignore brutal actions of russia. everyone knows russians methods of showing "power" Putin will never rise red level..Coz it will cost cold war. no one wants sit in a bunker , stupid actions ? ? no more. it's not '70s.
god bless super5 humanity.

sorry for bad english