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Several Radio Free Europe websites were under a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack in the past week. The attacks started on 26 April 2008, the 22nd anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, primary targeted at the Belarus Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) service which was offering live coverage of a rally of protest organized in Minsk against the plight of uncompensated victims and a government decision to build a new nuclear plant.

Martins Zvaners, RFE spokesman, thinks that was the largest attack ever experienced by RFE. At its peak, the DDoS attack was sending more than 50000 requests to the RFE sites, flooding its servers' capacity and throwing them offline.

Although there is no proof of who was behind the attacks, Zvaners pointed his finger at the Belarus administration: "This started on the day of a demonstration that they wanted no one to cover. They've never been real happy with us. In an ongoing sense, they are always 'jamming' our signals. We can't say for certain who did it, but you look at the circumstances and you can start to draw some possible inferences."

US State Department spokeswoman Jessica Simon stated that it was the Belarusian Government's responsibility to stop such kind of attacks while Nina Ognianova, the program coordinator for Europe and Central Asia at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said it was also the responsibility of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to find and punish those responsible with the attacks. "In Belarus especially, RFE/RL service is significant now more than ever because Lukashenka's regime has destroyed the other independent and opposition broadcasters. (...) So we certainly are very concerned about this short-lived but successful attacks" said Ognianova.

RFE issued a news release on 28 April following which the attacks stopped and the sites went back online. According to Zvaners, RFE has now taken protection measures against similar attacks.

During the three days of the attack, RFR/RL's Belarus Service was supported by 22 Belarusian sites that hosted its content. "Dear friends. We value your solidarity and we promise to support any site that falls victim to such an attack in the future. (...) Thanks to all of you for your support of freedom" said Alyaksandr Lukashuk, director of RFE/RL's Belarus Service, who considers that the response to the attack was an example that could create a precedent for future online "esprit de corps" among journalists and pro-democracy advocates.

Belarus: RFE/RL Cites Online 'Solidarity' In Face Of Cyberattack (29.04.2008)
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2008/04/294d624f-a664-4791-adab-5...

Chernobyl coverage blows up in Radio Free Europe's face (29.04.2008)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/29/radio_free_europe_ddos_attacks...

DDoS attacks knocked Radio Free Europe off the Web (4.05.2008)
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasi...

U.S. Denounces Attack On RFE/RL Websites (29.04.2008)
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2008/04/8277ba11-4725-49d1-8e8a-8...