Georgia's cyberspace hacked, attacked

MOSCOW, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Recent cyberattacks on Georgian Web sites point to the huge possibilities for using the Internet to create confusion for political gain, security experts say.

After Russia and Georgia began fighting over the breakaway province of South Ossetia nearly two weeks ago, several pro-Russia online forums issued a call-to-arms and included cyber tools to help create online confusion and bog down Georgian government sites. The cyber-incursions caused little substantive damage, e-security personnel said.

"This type of attack will form at least a part of all geopolitical conflicts from now on," Steve Santorelli, director of investigations at research firm Team Cymru, told USA Today.

Russian supporters could click on a tool designed to inundate targeted Web sites with nuisance requests, essentially blocking normal traffic to the sites, said Artem Dinaburg, a researcher at security firm Damballa.

Russian cybercrime crime lords helped by directing parts of their networks of compromised PCs to involuntarily join the attacks, USA Today said.

A similar attack choked most Internet services to Estonia for several weeks in 2007. Other attacks on a smaller scale also have been reported, prompted by political disputes between Russia and Baltic states with Western leanings, VeriSign iDefense researcher Kimberly Zenz said.