'Prepare for cyber terrorism'

2007-05-18 10:10

London - US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said in an interview published on Friday that cyber attacks, such as the one unleashed on Estonia this week, will "become more of an issue" in the future.

Estonia had urged its allies in the European Union and Nato to take firm action against the cyber attacks that have hit the Baltic state amid a bitter row with Russia over a Soviet war memorial.

"We need to prepare ourselves because this is likely only to become more of an issue in the future," Negroponte told the Financial Times and other European newspapers from Brussels.

Cyber terrorism was becoming a bigger issue "as familiarity with these technologies grows and more and more actors get involved in information technology".

Estonian institutional websites have been under regular cyber-attack since the end of last month, when a row blew up with Russia over the removal from central Tallinn of a memorial to Soviet Red Army soldiers.

Officials in Estonia, including Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, have claimed that some of the cyber attacks, which forced the authorities in the Baltic state to temporarily shut down websites, came from Russian government computers, including in the office of President Vladimir Putin.

- AFP