DoS Attacks on Estonia Were Launched by Student

As_I_Please alerts us to the fact that a 20-year-old Estonian student has been fined for participating in DoS attacks against various Estonian political and governmental websites last May. The situation was notable because it escalated tensions between Estonia and Russia when the latter was accused of initiating the 'cyber-attack'. Quoting: "The fact that a single student was able to trigger such events is particularly ominous when you consider just how many potential flashpoints exist between various countries all over the world. The DoS attack against Estonia is an excellent example of how a cyberattack carried out by a 20-year-old student in response to real-life events further exacerbated an existing problem between two nations."

Comments

An exellent example... of what?

[gnud]

The DoS attack against Estonia is an excellent example of how a cyberattack carried out by a 20-year-old student in response to real-life events further exacerbated an existing problem between two nations.

Eh. How about the _only_ example?

Russia accused...

[unbug]

So on what basis did Estonia accuse Russia of staging those attacks? This story was picked up all over the world and nobody bothered to check if they actually had anything resembling a proof?

Not Acting Alone

[mandelbr0t]

While they may not have found evidence of any other people involved, it's unlikely that a single person could establish a botnet large enough to overwhelm anything on his own. The only answer I can think of is education - botnets exist because the owners of the zombie PCs simply don't recognize that it's a zombie. There is certainly an overall lack of regulation, too. As a domain owner, I see lots of abusive traffic and have absolutely no legal recourse to punish a perpetrator. Responsible network owners often help, but there's so few networks that are responsible that I usually assume they're not, forcing me to do what little I can at my own site to prevent further abuse.

For the student's part, he was only fined (I couldn't find how much in TFA). Not much deterrent to prevent him from doing it again. No leverage to find out who he was working with. The lack of clear laws in any country makes prosecution of such actions impossible. As a domain owner, I'd like to see civilized countries show some direction toward making prosecution of such activities a reality. Until then, it's "you hack me, I hack you" which is completely counterproductive.

Re:Not Acting Alone

[Anonymous Coward]

While they may not have found evidence of any other people involved, it's unlikely that a single person could establish a botnet large enough to overwhelm anything on his own.

I disagree. He wouldn't necessarily have to do anything to build a botnet himself, just have access to a C&C network built by someone else. He could gain access by renting the network, or even stumbling on an unprotected C&C server. There's a few out there, believe it or not. So yeah, other people may have created the botnet, but he still could have been acting alone when launching his attack.

Not the first time

[r_jensen11]

How was it that the United States got involved in Iraq, exactly?

Re:Headline *very* misleading!

[Max_W]

Ah yes. National-socialism. A son of an immigrant is not a true citizen. Only particular ethnicity is honored in the National State.

Re:Speaking of Soviet Estonia

[emilper]

doesn't seem to have ever moved beyond plotting and assassinations have any proof ? I mean proof, not allegations.