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Russia has been accused of attacking Georgian government websites in a cyber war to accompany their military bombardment. In a statement released using a replacement website built on Google's blog service, the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said: "A cyber warfare campaign by Russia is seriously disrupting many Georgian websites, including that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

Internet security watchdog, Shadowserver Foundation, has confirmed the attack: "We are now seeing new attacks against .ge sites - www.parliament.ge and president.gov.ge are currently being hit with http floods." Warnings have also been issued by Georgian officials saying that websites that do appear online may be hijacked and bogus.

Barack Obama, the Democratic US Presidential candidate, has demanded Moscow halt the internet attacks as well as observing a ceasefire on the ground.

For further analysis on the situation see:
• Internet Attacks Against Georgian Websites by Gadi Evron
• IT Attacks against Georgia? by Patrik Faltstrom
• Putin Makes His Move by Robert Kagan
• Coordinated Russia vs Georgia cyber attack in progress by Dancho Danchev
• Georgia DDoS Attacks: A Quick Summary of Observations by Jose Nazario

Updates:
• Georgian president's Web site moves to Atlanta AP - 8/11/2008
• Russian hackers continue attacks on Georgian sites AP - 8/12/2008
• Updates on the Georgian Cyber Attacks CircleID - 8/12/2008
• Did Russian Cyber Attacks Precede Military Action? CircleID - 8/12/2008
• Georgians Use Spam to Explain Their Situation CircleID - 8/13/2008
• Mobilizing Russian Population Attacking Georgia: Similar to the Estonian Incident? CircleID - 8/13/2008

Read full story: Telegraph.co.uk

Related topics: Cyberattack, Cybercrime, Security