"Today has not passed without attacks, but at the moment the situation is calmer and we are monitoring what is happening. Working hours have been longer than usual lately, but I think our employees have got some sleep," Tõnu Tammer from the State Information Authority (RIA) told news portal Delfi.

Tammer said some of yesterday's DDoS home page attacks sent 80,000 requests per second, which is just under five million requests per minute, at Estonian websites.

"If we compare yesterday's attack with the one in 2007 [Bronze Night], the attacks today were sometimes hundreds of times bigger," he said.

The official said if the state had not invested in cybersecurity during the spring then the outcome of this attack could be been very different.

"We would probably not be able to say that these attacks had little impact," he said. "However, it's not that the attackers are any more capable now, on the contrary, technology has advanced and the volumes of attacks are larger."

He said the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA), the Tax and Customs Board (EMTA), postal service Omniva and the Smart-ID website were among those targeted over the past 48 hours.

The attacks started after the government moved a Soviet T-34 tank and several other monuments from the eastern border city of Narva on Tuesday.

Russian hacker group Killnet has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Estonian officials say they have had little effect so far.

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