TOKYO -- Reports last week that Georgia was hit by a coordinated cyber attack that compromised government Web sites offered a reminder of the additional front governments must protect when diplomatic or military hostilities break out between nations. Last year, high-tech Estonia suffered a sustained cyber attack that one Pentagon official described at the time as a "watershed" in terms of society's awareness of its vulnerability. Over several weeks, numerous government Web sites and the country's two largest banks came under sustained attack from abroad, overwhelming some sites and forcing some to block access from abroad. It is with these kind of attacks in mind -- and the prospect that such attacks could be used to disrupt critical infrastructure in Asia or elsewhere -- that the Malaysian government backed the establishment of the International Multilateral Partnership Against Cyber-Terrorism, or IMPACT, in May.
Asian Countries Look to Bolster Cyber Defenses
