Cyber attackers strike again

TALLINN- Days before the May 9th Russian Victory Day celebrations, members of the 10th parliament of Estonia were hit with a flurry of cyber attacks from Russia.
Marko Mihkelson, a member of the Estonian Parliament from the ProPatria and Res Publica faction, said members of the previous Estonian parliament fell victime to the attacks on Sunday.

"E-mail messages with the .ru domain name speak to us about the BronzeSoldier, Victory Day, Estonia's"pro-fascism" and other well-known repertory. A set of e-mailaddresses of the members of our 10th parliament is widely circulating in theRussian cyberspace, and so it is not very difficult to launch such anattack," Mihkelson wrote in his blog.

He said that contrary to last year's spam attacks, when the contents of thee-mails were largely the same, Sunday's texts were different although with thesame undertone. "The next days until May 9 will show whether we have to dowith some kind of a wider action or the effort gradually peters out,"Mihkelson said.

Dozens of members of parliament mainly from the Reform Party and theconservative Pro Patria and Res Publica Union received such e-mails during lastyear's April disturbances and a few months earlier, after the parliament passedan act on prohibited structures.

For ethnic Estonians themonument symbolizes the nearly 50 years of Soviet occupation of Estonia,while many Russian-speakers see it only as a symbol of the Russian role in theliberation of Europe of Nazis in World War II.