The Estonian Cyberwar is part of the history of Cyberia. The series of attacks began April 27, 2007, on Websites of Estonias parliament, ministries, banks, newspapers and others, in the wake of a row with Russia about the relocation of a Soviet memorial.

Like most cyber attacks, they stayed at the soft levels of cyberwar: Web vandalism, propaganda, denial of service. But they were coordinated with unprecedented sophistication, suggesting state backingpresumably Russian (unproven, and denied).

One year down, as the cyber-savvy Baltic nation of Estonia braced up for repeats, we saw a surge in cyber attacks in India and across the world. Indias Ministry of External Affairs saw its network hacked, with the break-in traced to China. Information was copied, though not sensitive data.

Cyber break-ins are on the rise. CERT (Indias Computer Emergency Response Team, which monitors security incidents) says that 612 Indian sites were defaced in March, compared to 214 in February. A defence (DRDO) website was hacked to distribute malware.

It wasnt just India. The Bank of Israel took down its Web site on April 25, after sabotage by hackers. Listen to me Jewsyou are a nation whose fate has been decreed you will lose the war, read the home page.

Prasanto K Roy pkr@cybermedia.co.in

Heres why all this may be a good thing.

Lets look at a less visible, low-news-impact activity happening in Cyberia every second: phishing. I know at least three cases where people have lost money.

Cut to the other end of the spectrum. Cyber warfare.

Forget the Diehard 4 genre of Hollywood flicks. Orchestrated pure-cyber attacks on a complete nation by hackers is impractial, if only because power utilities and telocs are not so easily online-accessible.

But IT is transforming warfare. No longer will massive armies fight bloody battles. Instead small, mobile forces, with GPS and real-time satellites information intelligence and battlefield sensor data, will strike fast, exploiting information. Cyber warfare will be an inevitable part of such an integrated force, and will include tech for command and control, intelligence, tactical comms, positioning, smart weapons systemsand also jamming, intruding into or blocking enemy communications.

High-profile Web vandalism does countries and companies a service: it highlights security gaps, without causing much real damage. It tells a bank that it has to pull up its socks on security, even though its financial data is isolated from its Web content network. It highlights a countrys vulnerability, even though the MEAs internet-attached network may be quite distinct from its secured data network.

So heres to the Web vandals, who highlight gaps that could one day lead to serious economic disruption, or strategic communications failure, or even interception of chain of command when at war.

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