Computer Emergency Response Teams from France and Poland aided th...
Computer Emergency Response Teams from France and Poland aided the Republic of Georgia during August cyberattacks, said an unclassified summary of CERT-Estonia actions in Georgia. A downed microwave repeater “eliminated connection to the Internet via routes not under the…
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control of the Russian Federation,” the summary said. GSM network troubles were linked to bad network design and combat, it said. An Aug. 12-16 Estonian visit sought mainly to collect information and fend off attacks on local government and news agency Web sites, the summary said. Caucasus Network and former incumbent United Telecom of Georgia are the republic’s dominant ISPs. East-west fiber cables connect the country and link to the Russian Federation at both ends. Caucasus Online has Internet connectivity with Turkey through a microwave link. Russian Federation troops wrecked a repeater station, “eliminating Internet connection via routes not under Russian Federation control,” the summary said. Georgian national top-level domain .ge is hosted and administrated by the Caucasus Network, the report said. “TLD name server ns.nic.ge is replicated in ‘ns.uu.net,’ ‘ns2.nic.fr,’ ‘ns-ge.ripe.net’ and ’sunic.sunet.se,'” the summary said. “Distribution of the TLD name servers is good and probably sufficient,” it said. Government bodies don’t control the subdomains of the gov.ge address spaces they use, with development and hosting of the Web sites both outsourced. Georgia has three major GSM network operators. Tbilisi-based Magti uses spread topology for its GSM network. Four GSM switches are spread across the country, the summary said. Turkish operator Turkcell and Russian operator Beeline also offer services. Poor mobile network design and combat accounted for mobile network troubles during the conflict. Georgia’s biggest bank, TBC, was attacked starting Aug. 9, overloading the firewall and helping to bring down ATM and payment terminals. The National Bank of Georgia ordered temporary suspension of all bank Web sites and Internet banking. Attacks started Aug. 8, said the summary. CERT Georgia, which began acting like a national CERT, coordinating attack mitigation, is a university CERT with one full time worker. Others assist when needed. CERT-Georgia got operational help from CERT-France and CERT-Poland. The Polish CERT analyzed IP data and sent out abuse messages. French CERT-France collected log files. A classified report prepared by the Estonian CERT won’t be circulated publicly because the technical data are protected by law, a CERT- Estonia spokesman said.