Google helps Georgia get back online after Russian cyber attack

Even after Russian President declared a ceasefire, Russian hackers continued their cyber siege over Georgia. Hundreds of Georgian websites have been brought down by Russian hackers in four days.

It was an indicator how modern day wars are fought in the cyber front, with Russian hackers launching an all out cyber attack on Georgia. Hundreds of Georgian government and news sites were controlled by Russian hackers and Internet traffic to these sites was being redirected to servers in Moscow. Many government websites were brought down including Georgia's official website Civil.ge, Georgian president's site etc. Georgian parliament site was hacked and site's content was replaced with images comparing President Saakashvili to Adolf Hitler. Even President Saakashvili's telephonic interview with CNN was disrupted by Russian attackers. Many Government websites had to change their platform to Google's blogger service. The Ministry of foreign affairs opened a temporary site in blogspot domain and many other government departments followed suit. Even Georgia's official website Civil.ge was running on blogger for some time. Greg Day, security analyst from McAfee. said

The Internet is a critical resource not only for government ministries, but also in assisting the running of countries, and such disruption can damage economies and impact the running of services.

Georgia is also getting help from it's neighbors Estonia and Poland in defending these cyber attacks.Estonia is sending a team of cyber defence advisers from its NATO Cyber Defence Centre to Georgia . Estonia's Internet infrastructure had come under attack from Russian hackers in April last year. Polish President, Lech Kaczynski offered his own website to Georgia to aid in the dissemination of information.