Cyberattack hits Radio Free Europe

MINSK, Belarus, April 29 (UPI) -- Web sites run by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty fell victim to a cyberattack causing a denial-of-service to Belarusian and other users, the broadcaster said.

The initial attack hit the Belarus RFE/RL service April 26, the 22nd anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, but quickly spread to other Eastern European sites, the broadcaster said Tuesday.

Most of the Eastern European sites are back online, but the Belarus service remains down.

The attack came from a flood of requests to the website, with the Belarus service getting 50,000 fake hits per second, the RFE/RL technology director Luke Springer said.

RFE/RL Belarus service director Alyaksandr Lukashuk said Internet users were looking to the service to cover an April 26 protest by the Belarusian opposition against government neglect of Chernobyl victims and plans to build a new nuclear plant in the city.

RFE/RL President Jeffery Gedmin said the attack is a symptom of government infringement on free speech.

"The Belarusians, the Iranians -- they all have basically the same objective. They see free information -- flowing information of ideas and so forth -- as the oxygen of civil society. They'll do anything they can to cut it off. If it means jamming, if it means cyberattacks, that's what they'll do," he said.