According to Estonia's Under-Secretary for Digital Transformation at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications Luukas Ilves, Estonia experienced the largest cyberattack since 2007 that simultaneously targeted governmental and private entities.

Estonia was successful in fending off the cyberattacks and the impact was limited, the Estonian official added.

In the DDoS attack, hackers attempted to overwhelm a network with high traffic volumes of data in an effort to paralyse it so it can no longer handle the volume of data being requested.

Killnet, a pro-Russian hacker group, claimed responsibility for the incident, stating that it blocked access to more than 200 state and private Estonian institutions, including an online citizen identification system.

The attacks were believed to be motivated by the Estonian government's plan to remove Soviet monuments from a region with a sizable Russian population.