Security News > 2008 > August > Battle for South Ossetia fought in cyberspace
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/battle-for-south-ossetia-fought-in-cyberspace-899772.html By Thais Portilho-Shrimpton The Independent 17 August 2008 The six-day war between Russia and Georgia may have seemed a scruffy, bloody, almost 19th-century nationalist conflict, but it saw the deployment of what will be a major weapon in the wars of the future: the internet. South Ossetia was, say experts in both technology and military studies, the world's first cyberwar. Websites on both sides, especially the Georgian one, were knocked out by co-ordinated online attacks. Among them were the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs websites, the online English language dailies 'The Messenger', and 'Civil', and the personal website of the Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili. Skirmishes have been conducted on websites before, notably as part of disputes that Russia had with Estonia in 2007 and Lithuania in July, but South Ossetia marked the first time they have been launched at the same time as ground troops and air strikes. They were even part of the softening-up process, with official Georgian sites coming under attack as far back as 21 July. Dr David Betz, senior lecturer at the Department of War Studies of King's College, London, said: "We're still in the wooden biplane era of cyber-war. It will get more sophisticated, probably quite quickly. The US has already created units for cyber-defence, so too has China, no doubt Russia, and probably many others." [...] __________________________________________________ Visit Defcon Pics - Defcon Memory Repository http://www.defconpics.org