The Siege of Tallinn

Chronicle

On 27 April 2007, as the Estonian government moved the Bronze Soldier memorial out of central Tallinn, a wave of DDoS attacks and defacements began that lasted for weeks. It hit the parliament, ministries, banks, ISPs and newspapers of one of Europe's most digital countries. Most of the traffic came from Russia, but no state responsibility was ever proven.

Lesson learned

It is regarded as the first cyberattack on an entire nation: it hastened the founding in Tallinn, in 2008, of NATO's Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) and to a rethink of how resilient public services must be.

Prayer of reparation

O Tall Hermann, tower that has seen every siege, shield the servers of a people who live online, and send a filter to those who besiege without ever signing their name. Amen.

How it is remembered

Remembered with national incident-response plans, agreements with ISPs to filter traffic and public services designed to withstand a siege.

Technical record

When the Bronze Soldier war memorial was moved in Tallinn, a weeks-long wave of DDoS attacks and defacements hit Estonia's parliament, ministries, banks, ISPs and news media. Most of the traffic came from Russia, though no state culprit was ever proven. It is widely regarded as the first cyberattack against a whole nation, and it hastened the founding of the NATO CCDCOE (2008) in Tallinn.