The EU and NATO have launched an investigation into a recent wave of cyber attacks on Estonia. The Guardian reports that the probe is being conducted amid suspicion that the attacks are linked to a dispute between Estonia and Russia over the removal of a war memorial. The attacks have disabled government Web sites in Estonia, as well as sites belonging to businesses, banks and newspapers.
It now turns out that the Sarasota County, Florida computer database was attacked by an Internet worm on the first day of early voting during the 2006 election, which featured the still-contested 13th District House race. The worm got through the system’s firewall, overwriting the administrative password, and bringing down the county’s entire electronic voting system for two hours.
According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), the Chinese Ministry of Information is giving up on a plan to crack down on bloggers by requiring all Chinese blog services to obtain verifiable personal details from users.