On April 27, 2007, the Estonian government moved a controversial bronze statue of a Soviet soldier from its long-time resting place to a military graveyard outside the capital city of Tallinn. The statue, which serves as a memorial to the fallen Soviet soldiers that battled the Nazis in World War II, has long served as a point of tension between the majority Estonian and minority Russian populations within Estonia. For the Russians, the statue is a symbol of sacrifice and struggle. For the Estonians, the statue represents occupation and oppression. After 15 years of independence from the former Soviet Union, the government finally decided to take action to place this troubling symbol in a more remote location. The reaction from the Russian minority was swift, with rioting and looting of downtown Tallinn that lasted for days. Along with chaos in the streets came the beginning of a protracted cyberriot known now as the first Internet war.
For Estonia, the cyber-campaign brought negative consequences on a national scale. Having rapidly accelerated into the online age, Estonians leverage the Internet in every aspect of life. Therefore widespread denial-of-service attacks had significant implications. The nature of the attacks at first appeared familiar but quickly morphed into a new phenomenon. In contrast to cyberattacks of old, consisting of waves of botnets, this conflict exploited the anger of the Russian minority to exact revenge online at scale.
At the start of the conflict, posts appeared in Russian-language websites, discussion groups and blogs about the recent events and ways to respond. With a combination of hate speech and instructions on how to launch a denial-of-service attack, average citizens were called to the battle and provided cyberweapons to participate. As the campaign continued, fresh posts in the blogosphere provided updates allowing the masses to adapt as the defenses attempted to respond to the attacks.
The Estonian Internet war provides the first example of a new type of warfare that leverages social media to exploit societal tensions and dramatically reduce the barriers to participation in conflict online. With the assistance and guidance of likely a small number of skilled information technology specialists, cyberweapons were crafted and distributed online to anyone that wanted to participate. They were crafted such that no special skills or resources were required to operate them. With access to the Internet, anyone could join in the fight and express their outrage in a significant way with limited risk. It is a masterful use of knowledge of the human terrain and the technological landscape in concert to exert significant effect.
Without a doubt, this will certainly not be the last time we witness this type of conflict. With Russia's recent incursion into Georgia, a cyber-campaign was launched in concert with ground operations. Although the Russian government once again denies involvement in the cyber-campaign, similar activities are being witnessed online. Online forums are once again distributing scripts for executing denial-of-service attacks that have targeting lists embedded within. Once again, a few with the necessary technical literacy are significantly lowering the barrier to participation so that the masses can express themselves through their actions online.
