Estonia reports massive cyberattacks on govt agencies, private sector

TALLINN. Aug 18 (Interfax/BNS) - Estonia's government agencies and private sector came under massive cyberattacks on Wednesday, Deputy Secretary General for Digital Development at the Estonian Ministry for Economic Affairs and Communications Luukas Kristjan Ilves said.

"Yesterday, Estonia was subject to the most extensive cyber attacks it has faced since 2007. Attempted DDoS attacks targeted both public institutions and the private sector," the BNS agency quoted Ilves as saying on Twitter on Thursday.

In his words, the attacks were ineffective and the websites remained fully available throughout the day with brief and insignificant exceptions.

The attack went almost unnoticed in Estonia, Ilves said.

According to BNS, the Estonian Information System Authority (CERT-EE) identified 24 websites and servers infected with malware, which were used to attack and infect devices of Internet users in Estonia. In all, 137 malware programs were detected.

In addition, 12 DDoS attacks were launched on government agencies and their websites overnight, BNS said. There were four DDoS attacks on private companies, which also targeted government agencies indirectly, it said.

Eight phishing webpages trying to get information about email and bank accounts were detected, too, BNS said.