[September 12, 2011] Russia's U.K. Embassy Says Website Targeted By Cyberattack Tweet Sep 12, 2011 (Radio Free Europe Documents and Publications/ContentWorks via COMTEX) -- Russia's U.K. Embassy Says Website Targeted By Cyberattack September 11, 2011 Russia's embassy in London says its website crashed in a suspected hacking attack just before Prime Minister David Cameron begins the first visit by a British leader to Moscow since the 2006 killing in London of a Kremlin critic. The embassy said it had set up a "mirror" website to meet the increased interest of the public and media for information before Cameron flies to Russia on September 11. The embassy said in a statement that its website "was brought down by a suspected DDoS" or distributed denial-of-service, attack. A DDoS attack is one in which hackers flood a website with requests for information, making it unavailable to legitimate users. Britain's relations with Russia have been soured by a dispute over the 2006 murder in London of Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence agent who died from poisoning by radioactive polonium-210. Russia has refused to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, an ex-KGB bodyguard Britain wants to prosecute for Litvinenko's murder, plunging bilateral ties to a post-Cold War low. Relations have improved since Cameron took office in 2010. Copyright (c) 2011. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]