Last summer, three weeks before the shooting war between Georgia and Russia began, online attackers started assaulting Georgia's websites. Since then, researchers have tried to find out who masterminded the network strikes -- military electronic warriors, patriotic hackers, cyber-crooks -- without finding anything definitive.

But Georgian National Security Council chief Eka Tkeshelashvili says she knows exactly who's behind the network assault. "There's plenty of evidence that the attacks were directly organized by the government in Russia," she tells Danger Room. It's perhaps the boldest, most direct accusation of blame to come from a senior government official in the Russia-Georgia cyber war.

But, in conversations with Danger Room, neither Tkeshelashvili nor her advisers offered any new evidence that conclusively linked Moscow to the attacks on Georgian cyberspace. "I'm not saying it's enough for a criminal court, to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt," Tkeshelashvili conceded.

Nevertheless, Tkeshelashvili is scheduled to tell the GovSec conference in Washington, D.C. later today that "Russia invaded Georgia on four fronts. Three of them were conventional — on the ground, through the air, and by sea. The fourth was new — their attacks via cyberspace... It is, quite simply, implausible that the parallel attacks by land and by cyberspace were a coincidence — official denials by Moscow notwithstanding."

And she may not be wrong. But the maddening thing about network attacks is that it's all too easy to cloak identities, work through third-parties, and route attacks through far-flung servers. Which makes it next-to-impossible to definitively pin blame. Russian hackers have claimed key roles in the cyber war. Ordinary citizens were encouraged to pile on. One member of Russia's parliament recently said the whole thing was started out of his office.

"You'll never be able to establish, through in-band technical means, who was sitting in front of a computer from which an attack originates, nor can you discern their motivations," Bill Woodcock, research director at the Packet Clearing House, told Danger Room, when the attacks began. "Instead, one has to look at who the political beneficiary is, one has to look at who's claiming responsibility for the attack, and whether that claim is contested."

In her speech, Tkeshelashvili lays out a three-part hierarchy to the attacks:

"At the top of the hierarchy are the "Soldiers": the professional planners, computer scientists, engineers, and other implementers, including the military itself. Next are what some call the "Mercenaries." These are criminal organizations paid to carry out certain elements of the attacks. In this case, there are strong signs implicating an outfit known as the Russian Business Network (RBN). And, finally, there are the "Volunteers." These are individuals with PC’s who are recruited to carry out attacks. They are provided with access to all the necessary software tools, as well as to detailed instructions for carrying out the attacks. In other words, they don’t have to be skilled and “educated” hackers. This is literally a mobilization of the masses."

Jeffrey Carr, principal of hacker-tracker firm GreyLogic, LLC, says Tkeshelashvili is "definitely in the ballpark." But key details are off. The Russian Business Network, as a group of individuals, has been largely disbanded, for instance. Their infrastructure of shell companies and shady servers and botnets-for-hire remains. It's yet another complicating factor, when online investigators try to find who's behind a network attack.