Russian 'cyber militia' knocks Kyrgyzstan offline

Opposition to the current Kyrgyzstan administration has relied heavily on the Internet, while President Bakiyev's government has ignored the Web, said Jackson. "Any attack by Russians would do no collateral damage to their ally in the area, and would only impact the opposition," he explained.

Beyond the immediate impact on Kyrgyzstan, what's worrisome to Jackson is the speed with which this attack was mounted. "To put some perspective on this, it's been an escalating pattern from to Georgia to here," he said, talking about the 2007 and 2008 attacks against other former Soviet republics. "The attacks are more closely coinciding with events that are core to the Russian interest, with increasingly fast response and quick mobilization.

"When it once took days or weeks, now we're seeing it within hours," he said.

The Kyrgyzstan attacks, in fact, were mobilized in much the same way that the so-called militia was formed last year to cripple Georgia. "It was the same kind of mobilization, where word is put out by a few and then other [hackers] respond," he said. One difference: The attacks against Kyrgyzstan lacked the kind of wide support that the Georgian DDoS attacks gained. At one point, Russian social network were involved in the latter, something not yet seen in the attacks against Kyrgyzstan.

"We haven't seen a broad base of support by Russian citizens," said Jackson. "It's more the core of the militia group."