I attacked Estonia.

I think. Probably. Well, sort of.

I attacked somebody, anyway.

I don’t have anything against Estonia. The people there have enough problems without worrying about me.

And it wasn’t intentional, either. As a matter of fact, I intentionally try to avoid attacking people.

But it happened anyway. I couldn’t help it.

Maybe I should be a little more specific. I should say my computer attacked Estonia.

Yep, my computer. Me, who is very careful about avoiding malware infections, who keeps his anti-virus program updated, doesn’t click on suspicious-looking ads, and dumps spam e-mail without opening.

For those of you who aren’t students of international intrigue, the eastern border of Estonia, which is about the size of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island combined, is Russia. Of course, Russia is the largest country in the world, almost twice the size of whoever is in second place (Canada).

In 1940, Russia took over Estonia, ruling in typical Soviet fashion. Suffice it to say that Estonians aren’t crazy about Russians.

About a quarter of the population of Estonia is of Russian descent. In April, Estonia removed a Soviet war memorial in Tallinn, which sparked riots among the Russian population.

Estonians say the memorial symbolized the Soviet occupation. Russians say the memorial was a tribute to those who fought the Nazis. So you have here a philosophical conflict, one not easy to be solved.

On one side, the uppity little country of Estonia. On the other side, the people of Russia _ a good portion of the rest of the world. Now, in this day and age, it just wouldn’t look right for Russia to roll the tanks (again) and squish the little country like a bug.

So the frustration sets in on the Russian side.

The perfect situation for _ you guessed it _ terrorism.

In this case, ``cyber’’-terrorism.

Ever since April, Estonia, which depends largely on the Internet, has been suffering major attacks against its country’s websites.

Some of the attacks take the form of Distributed Denial of Service attacks, or DDoS attacks, which bombard websites with fake traffic, rendering them useless.

Targets include state and commercial websites, including banks, foreign and defense ministries and leading media sites.

Estonia says the attacks are coming from the Russians, who deny a part in it.

Actually, the Russian government may not be playing a direct part, but Russian people could still be behind it.

A NATO spokesman said it best: ``In the 21st century it’s not just about tanks and artillery." You don’t need a government to attack a country. Any bunch of hackers can lead the charge.

So this is where I came in. Some website I surfed to had a worm planted in it, and just by visiting the site, my computer became infected. It became a ``zombie’’ for some hacker to control, in turn making it attack some website somewhere.

I really just guessed that it was Estonia. It could have been any site targeted by a bad guy.

But the point is the same. Terrorism can take the form of computer attacks. And there is little most people can do about it.

My computer was running an anti-virus program, had anti-malware software, and was running behind a firewall.

For a good portion of the time it was infected, it operated more or less normally. I only picked up on it when I noticed the activity lights on my router flashing like crazy, as the computer "pinged" a bunch of target sites.

This is typical of the newer generation of malware. Each infection is purposely limited in its spread, so it stays under the radar of the major detection programs.

Upon investigation, I found out what was going on, and was able to clean the computer of its infection.

I would dare say most people would never have noticed anything. They would probably just keep trudging along, unknowingly taking their place in the long column of 21st-century cyber-soldiers.

The question we have to ask: What can we do about it?

Unfortunately, the answer parallels other types of terrorism _ not much, really, except try to be vigilant.

Bruce Endries is former systems manager at The Daily Star. He can be reached by e-mail at

techgp@dailystarmail.com.