A New Cyberwar Front

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Thursday's attacks indicate that hackers working for foreign intelligence services may now consider it vital to take down social networks as part of their Web attack strategies, said Fred Burton, vice president of counterterrorism and corporate security for global intelligence firm Stratfor.

"Look at what happened inside Iran during the elections and the blowback from the community blogging there," Burton told TechNewsWorld. "You're sitting around the table and your military command and intelligence services are saying, 'Next time, let's think about eliminating the ability of bloggers to dispatch messages.' This is just another tactic in the intelligence community. It's the modern-day version of blowing up the bridge over the river Kwai."

There are between six and a dozen foreign intelligence agencies who have the technological capabilities to pull off an event like Thursday's DDOS attack, Burton said, including the Russian FSB, the new version of the Cold War-era KGB. "Due to the timing and the nature of the victim, this certainly smells of Russian FSB active measures -- and, quite simply, it's because they can. It's not surprising to me at all."

With Regards;
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