[NPMUG] Yet more cyberwar

[Charles Firth]

I know I'm the only person who was completely freaked out by Russia's  
cyber attack on Estonia last year. But I'm determined to share the  
latest news.

As I'm sure you all know, Russia and Georgia are at war - but the  
conflicted didn't start in South Ossetia - it started online.
Georgia's Internet presence has been under sustained attack for over 2  
weeks now. Here's a detailed breakdown of the fighting so far:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1670

In recent news, it appears members of Estonia's CERT (formed after  
their country was crippled in cyber warfare) have gone to Georgia to  
help them fight the russian  attacks. In addition, several critical  
Georgian websites have been moved to Estonia, Poland, and the US.  
(Amusingly, the Georgian president's website is now hosted by an ISP  
in Atlanta)

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9112399&

  The attacks aren't movie-grade hacking, simply DDoS strikes aimed at  
disrupting communications.
A large chunk of the attacks depend on weaknesses in Windows and MS  
SQL. I don't think I'm being flippant when I say such vulnerabilities  
should be considered a matter of national security. Estonia and now  
Georgia certainly think so.

Please take a moment to patch any machines you have lying around -  
Macs included.

Charles


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