RIA Novosti hit by Cyber-attacks Yesterday

Yesterday, Sunday, I reported:

Sometime after mid-day today I tried unsuccessfully to access the Russia Today website for further information. Whether this is because of heavy traffic or because the website is being blocked by someone it is difficult to tell. I experienced the very same problem trying to access the RIA Novosti website.

It appears that the sites were under cyber-attack. RIA Novosti reports, RIA Novosti hit by cyber-attacks as conflict with Georgia rages.

The report goes on to say:

RIA Novosti news agency's website was disabled for several hours on Sunday by a series of hacker attacks, as the conflict between Russia and Georgia over breakaway South Ossetia continued for a third day.

Websites in both Russia and Georgia have been hit by cyber attacks since Georgia launched a major ground and air offensive to seize control of South Ossetia on Friday. Russia responded by sending in tanks and hundreds of troops.

"The DNS-servers and the site itself have been coming under severe attack," said Maxim Kuznetsov, head of the RIA Novosti IT department.

RIA Novosti's servers are now functioning as normal.

A top Russian diplomat accused foreign media on Sunday of pro-Georgian bias in their coverage of the ongoing conflict.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080810/115936419.html