Estonia Suffers The Most Extensive Cyberattack Since 2007 After Removing Soviet Monuments
Estonia said it successfully withstood a major cyberattack launched by Russia-aligned hackers. They attempted to take down the websites of government offices, banks, and healthcare providers in the Baltic nation.
Estonia is one of Europe’s major software development hubs. The republic of 1.3 million — which regained its independence in 1991 after decades of rule from Moscow — is also one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters in the face of the Russian invasion.
Estonia has provided, on a per capita basis, more military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine than any other country. Killnet, a pro-Russian hacker group, claimed responsibility for the incident.
KillNet Pronounced Itself The Assailant
It states that it blocked access to more than 200 state and private Estonian institutions, including an online citizen identification system.
Estonia’s Government Chief Information Officer, Lukas Ilves, said that Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS attacks) targeted both public institutions and the private sector. During such attacks, huge numbers of bots attack target computers.
However, he also noted that the attacks went largely unnoticed, with the majority of the websites remaining online throughout the day.
Soviet Union Monument Uninstalled
Estonia ordered to remove all public Soviet-era memorials from Narva, where the majority of the population speaks Russian.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said that these monuments represent a symbol of Russia’s aggression, which opened up all wounds following its invasion of Ukraine.
In 2007, similar attacks followed the removal of a Red Army monument from Tallinn square, accompanied by cultural divides and riots by ethnic Russians.
Earlier this year, Kill net announced that it was behind the attack on several Italian institutions, ministries and Lithuanian government websites, as well as behind the alleged attack during the Eurovision song contest.
The United Nations claims that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has created the “fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. Displacing over 11 million people due to the conflict, with over 6.4 million fleeing the country.
