Report Studies Social and Psychological Aspects of DDoS Attacks in ‘Web War One’
Three researchers have claimed that the cyber attacks that wrecked havoc on Estonia in 2007 were partly fueled by the anonymity of the Internet and a concept called contagion. The paper, entitled ‘Storming the Servers: A Social Psychological Analysis of the First Internet War,’ is one of the first to examine the psychological and social aspects that contributed to the massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that hit Estonia.
Researchers Rosanna Guadagno, Robert Cialdini and Gadi Evron write that the chief contributor to the mayhem was the anonymity that the Internet provides, which allowed individuals to break with traditional social mores.
“Participants in the attacks both transmitted instructions on how to participate and took part in the DDoS attacks themselves from the privacy of their offices, internet cafes, and homes,” the researchers write. “One of the many ways in which communication via the internet differs from face-to-face communication is the relative anonymity afforded by the communication mode.”
This lack of accountability (attribution in cyberspace is relatively difficult) can help spur individuals to participate in actions that they would not likely carry out if they were attributable.
The Estonian attack, termed ‘Web War One’ by the researchers, is “the first documented example of a series of coordinated attacks that successfully incapacitated the online infrastructure of a nation for several days,” they write.
The attacks took place following the decision by the Estonian government to move a statue honoring Soviet soldiers that died during the Second World War. The attacks hit the websites of the president, prime minister, parliament, government agencies, banks, and news agencies, with one bank reported a loss of $1 million.
The researchers also found that the concept of contagion, or crowd mentality, also led to the actions as individuals saw other people carrying out attacks and opted to join in.
“This suggests that as more members of the Russian-language internet posted messages about their participation in the attacks and urged others to join, a norm emerged that participation was the appropriate course of action,” the researchers write. “We posit that information on how to participate in the attacks spread much as various panics, manias, and sprees have in times past. Online communication can facilitate contagion because of the rapidity and broad reach of transmission.”
You can view the paper here
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