Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08STATE48469
2008-05-07 18:44:00
UNCLASSIFIED
Secretary of State
Cable title:  

OSCE PERMANENT COUNCIL: STATEMENT ON RECENT

Tags:  OSCE PTER PREL 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO7773
PP RUEHAST RUEHBW RUEHFL RUEHLA RUEHMRE RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHC #8469 1281850
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P R 071844Z MAY 08
FM SECSTATE WASHDC
TO RUEHVEN/USMISSION USOSCE PRIORITY 0350
INFO ORG FOR SECURITY CO OP IN EUR COLLECTIVE
UNCLAS STATE 048469 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: OSCE PTER PREL
SUBJECT: OSCE PERMANENT COUNCIL: STATEMENT ON RECENT
CYBER ATTACKS IN THE OSCE REGION


UNCLAS STATE 048469

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: OSCE PTER PREL
SUBJECT: OSCE PERMANENT COUNCIL: STATEMENT ON RECENT
CYBER ATTACKS IN THE OSCE REGION



1. Post is authorized to present the following statement at
the May 8 Permanent Council meeting in Vienna.

Begin text:

Mr. Chairman,

On April 26 the website of the Belarus Service of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty was the subject of a cyber attack.
RFE/RL, which is an independent, international news and
broadcast organization, is one of the few sources of outside
information about developments in Belarus. Funded by the
United States Congress through the Broadcasting Board of
Governors, RFE/RL broadcasts enjoy broad listenership in
Belarus and throughout the OSCE region. Many more people,
however, rely on RFE/RL websites for the latest news and
information about what is occurring inside their countries.
When the two-day denial of service attack occurred, RFE,s
Belarus Service was preparing special coverage of protests in
Minsk on the anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The
cyber attack was apparently intended to make the targeted
website unavailable to its users; it quickly spread to
several other RFE/RL websites.

According to RFE/RL, it has been hit before by
denial-of-service attacks, which seek to flood a web-site
with fake attempts to gain access in a deliberate effort to
overwhelm its capacity. The April 26 attack, however, was
unprecedented in its scale. Fake requests to communicate,
running up to 50,000 hits per second, were used to strip the
general public,s ability to access RFE as an information
source. In doing so, the attackers also sought to mute the
voices of hundreds of people who participate in RFE/RL,s
online discussions, those who send their comments, questions,
photos, and videos to this news source.

Sadly, we all know that this attack is not the first time
that cyber aggression has been used in the OSCE region. We
recall the cyber attack last year that was aimed at Estonia,
in which still-unidentified perpetrators sought to disrupt
government and commerce there, after a period of tension and
controversy due to the attackers' dissatisfaction about one
aspect of Estonian government policy.

Mr. Chairman, what occurred to RFE was a clear violation of
guarantees of media freedom and of freedom of expression that
the OSCE as an institution stands for, and which all 56
participating States are pledged to uphold. This new form of
aggression, however, has even broader implications for
security in the OSCE region. This emerging threat deserves
further study. Such cyber attacks, whether or not they are
undertaken with the acquiescence of a government, have the
practical effect of denying people free access to
information, and they must be condemned. Strategies are
needed that strengthen our ability to defend ourselves
against such threats.

The Anti-Terrorism Unit has examined to some degree terrorist
use of the Internet, focusing on such issues as incitement
and recruitment. We believe the OSCE could perhaps examine
the issue of cyber attacks and ways we can better defend
legitimate information-sharing efforts from criminal attack.
In the spirit of the initiative put forward by the Estonian
delegation recently, we strongly recommend the Security
Committee take a closer look at this issue and consider
whether further work in this field is warranted for our
organization.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman

End text
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