Belgrade's Cyber-Assault

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

April 6, 1999 / 12:13 PM EDT / CBS

Launching a fierce volley of normally innocuous "ping" commands, Yugoslav cyber-guerrillas were able to overload NATO's Web servers last week and prevent Internet surfers from logging on for several days.

Chris Scheurweghs, of NATO's Integrated Data Service, on Tuesday told CBS.com that NATO's Internet site has since been restored to public view with every potentially harmful command deactivated.

He said the cyber-attack - which did not amount to an actual hack, as originally reported by NATO spokesman Jamie Shea - was part of a concerted campaign to shut down sites deemed hostile to Belgrade. Radio Free Europe was also said to be targeted in the campaign.

"The Internet is a symbol of freedom of speech, what they were trying to do was to stop the communication," said Scheurweghs. "People can raise their voice and shout their feelings and if you block it systematically you can't hear anybody . . ."

Scheurweghs said the NATO site is handling a load of 70,5000 requested files a day, which is up from a prewar average of 25,000. The alliance has been forced to add new servers to handle the load.

Last week, Shea said, "It seems that we have been dealing with some hackers in Belgrade... At the same time our e-mail system has also been saturated by one individual who is currently sending us 2,000 e-mails a day." He added that the alliance was also targeted by a computer virus attack.

Belgrade's cyber-salvo did not amount to hacking because the security of NATO's computer network was apparently not endangered. Scheurweghs said NATO's classified operational server is not linked to its Webserver.