http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/03/pro-kremlin-gro.html By Noah Shachtman Danger Room Wired.com March 11, 2009 Like the online strikes against Georgia, the origins of the 2007 cyber attacks on Estonia remain hazy. Everybody suspects the Russian government was somehow behind the assaults; no one has been able to prove it. At least so far. A pro-Kremlin youth group has taken responsibility for the network attacks. And that group has a track record of conducting operations on Moscow's behalf. Nashi ("Ours") is the "largest of a handful of youth movements created by Mr. Putin’s Kremlin to fight for the hearts and minds of Russia’s young people in schools, on the airwaves and, if necessary, on the streets," according to the New York Times. Yesterday, one of the group's "commissars," Konstantin Goloskokov (pictured), told the Financial Times that he and some associates had launched the strikes. "I wouldn't have called it a cyber attack; it was cyber defense," he said. "We taught the Estonian regime the lesson that if they act illegally, we will respond in an adequate way." He made similar claims, in 2007. If true, it would be only one in a long string of propaganda drives the group has waged in support of the Kremlin. Not only has Nashi waged intimidation campaigns against the British and Estonian ambassadors to Moscow, and staged big pro-Putin protests. Not only has been it been accused of launching denial-of-service attacks against unfriendly newspapers. Last month, Nashi activist Anna Bukovskaya acknowledged that the group was paid by Moscow to spy on other youth movements. The project, for which she was paid about $1100 per month, included obtaining "videos and photos to compromise the opposition, data from their computers; and, as a separate track, the dispatch of provocateurs," she told a Russian television channel. [...] _______________________________________________ Best Selling Security Books and More! http://www.shopinfosecnews.org/Received on Fri Mar 13 2009 - 01:28:13 PDT
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