Lithuania cyber attacks: Round two

VILNIUS- Lithuania was hit by a second wave of cyber attacks as the state tax office's website wasswarmed with requests in attempt to crash the website, losing valuable taxdata. No damage was found.

However, head of the tax inspectorate Gediminas Vysniauskis said in astatement that he believed the attacks were planned in advance.  

At the time of the first investigation, the hacking servers appeared to belocated in Romania,however officials believe that the attacks were not based there, but merelyrouted through.  

"Addresses of servers, which generated the requests, were blockedimmediately... the preliminary analysis shows the servers were located in Romania,"the tax office said.

The attacks are similar to the attacks sustained by Estonia inApril and May 2007.  

The attacks are of a different nature than those of June 2008, in whichhundreds of official Lithuanian websites were hacked into and vandalized withsoviet symbols and anti-Lithuanian propaganda. Officials believe that the attackwas provoked by Lithuania'sdecision to ban the use of Soviet symbols and the Soviet anthem.

Estoniawas also faced with a similar attack. Officials then came to the sameconclusion, that the governmental decision to remove the bronze Soviet soldierstatue from the capital of Tallinn provokedanger from the Russian community in Estoniaand Moscow.