Online Public Relations Thoughts

There have been predictions for some time that the next war will be as much a cyber conflict as a shooting one. That is what is happening in Georgia. There are widespread reports of massive Denial of Service attacks against country and government web sites to prevent the government from getting its messages out. The attacks emanated from Russia. While Denial of Service attacks are not new, their use in this way is.

There is nothing to prevent such attacks against any organization anywhere. This is a threat that is beyond PR but can stop communications in its tracks. It is an issue practitioners need to think about because so much of organizations' message distribution today depends on the internet.