A government website belonging to the president of Georgia was offline for 24 hours after being hit by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, apparently originating from Russian botnets.

Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili’s official site was brought down over the weekend, while analysts from Arbor Networks reported one DDoS message as reading “win+love+in+Russia”.

“Tensions between Russia and Georgia appear to be running high lately. This attack appears to have a political motivation,” said Arbor’s chief analyst, Jose Nazario.

Georgia has a long-running dispute with Russia over its support of rebels in the breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, regions that declared independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The two countries are currently sparring in the UN Security Council after Russian aircraft allegedly intruded into Georgian airspace on 8 July.

Shadow Server researcher Steven Adair said DDoS attacks against Russian neighbours had been “quite popular” in recent years. “Is the attack political or perhaps nationalistic in nature? Your guess is as good as ours, but it doesn't take much to come to this possible conclusion,” he said.

Estonia suffered large-scale attacks focused on its infrastructure last year, possibly in retaliation for moving a Soviet war memorial.

Further reading

NATO establishes anti-cybercrime authority
NATO has established an international Cyber Defence Management Authority to tackle cybercrime, while the US military is developing its own cyber-attack capabilities.

Russia in midst of cyber war
The attacks appear similar in character to those perpetrated against neighbouring state Estonia.

China's blueprint for cyber war
The plan forms part of an “aggressive push” by Beijing to achieve electronic supremacy by 2050.

Estonia calls for cyber convention
The potential severity of cyber-assaults continues to be underestimated, Estonia's president argues

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