E-stonia, that burgeoning technology center and booming economic wunderkind, is sharing its cyber defense expertise with the other 25 nations of NATO. A new Cyber Defense Center of Excellence is being set up in Tallinn by seven NATO nations including the US. Each will provide staff members who will concentrate on developing defense methods.
Frequent readers will be surprised to see me upbeat about anything led by a government initiative but I feel the same way about Estonia that many people feel about the Israeli Defense Forces: being on the front lines of battle has an amazing way of cutting through bureaucracy and BS. This is one group to pay attention to. I hope they become the focus for worldwide cyber defense and even host conferences in the future to share what they develop.
Advertisement: |
Richard Stiennon is a security industry analyst. He is currently consulting, speaking and writing on all manner of security topics for IT-Harvest, the IT research firm he founded to cover the security space. He was most recently chief marketing officer for Fortinet. He has served stints at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Gartner, and Webroot Software.
The Leader in Network Knowledge
Estonia
You're right, that readers may be surprised by your comments, but I however, couldn't agree with you more. Your analogy of Estonia's Cyber Defense intiative, to that of Israel's defense forces is an excellent choice. When a group, community or government, has experienced attacks or threats, the comination of severity and frequency, will embed security in to the culture. This responsive security change in their society is a defensive force, fueled not by politics or economics, but by the necessity for survival. It will be interesting to see if their cyber defense expertise will be recognized and adopted by others.
Noah
http://www.networkworld.com/community/securityphreak
Estonia
I heard that after the removal of a Soviet memorial in Tallinn, subsequent protests and cyber attacks ensued Estonia. The attacks originate from across the border in Russia.
I know Estonia is one of the cyber leaders of Europe, holding its first online election in 2005. But this Nato's desicion will only increase the number of attacks from Russia and elsewhere.
http://www.virtela.com
Estonia
So it's a cyber type of missile defense system. Right?