As the fighting continued in Ukraine, another conflict began to take shape elsewhere on Russia’s fringes. The aim of this borderless conflict is to destabilize the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but it is likely to expand by engulfing other countries.
Last month, the Lithuanian government and public service web portals came under constant cyber attack by Russian hackers. The attack came in response to Lithuania’s imposition of a package of European Union sanctions on goods transported to and from Kaliningrad, a Russian region located between Lithuania and Poland. Claiming responsibility for the attack, Russian hackers promised that there would be more to come in the near future.
“The offensive will continue until Lithuania lifts the blockade,” a spokesman for the group told Reuters. “We destroyed 1,652 web resources. And that’s only so far.”
The Baltic States have been on the front lines of electronic warfare for several decades. As the first countries to become independent from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, it certainly maintained its stance against Russia and thus bore the brunt of Russia’s increasingly sophisticated cyber attack.
This precarious situation was exacerbated by a series of aggressive Russian cyberattacks in the mid-2000s. In 2007, the Estonian parliament, several ministries, media organizations and banks experienced a series of severe cyber attacks on the state’s position on the relocation of a Soviet-era monument in the capital Tallinn. Baltic officials saw the attack as a prelude to an attack that could destroy power grids and render the country essentially ungovernable.
The severity of the attack, which lasted 22 days, forced Estonia to take measures to isolate the country from digital warfare. The approach was simple: put as many government services and systems as possible on private, secure networks and improve cyber security.
Eventually, Estonia moved citizen services and basic government functions to the blockchain, becoming the first country in the world to use this technology to protect its data. In doing so, Estonia created a country that could be governed from virtually anywhere in the world. When there is a Russian invasion or a cyber attack that disrupts essential services, the political leadership can flee the country and run it from somewhere else.
Such a model will not work in every country. However, the Baltic States, due to their small size and large IT sectors, provide a blueprint for how to build cyber security systems to withstand the vulnerabilities of our technological age. As more and more small countries with smart legislative environments adopt economic systems fueled by intellectual capital, the quality of their cyber security systems will determine which countries thrive in the next world order.
The bright side of this defensive stance is that citizens of the Baltic states live in digital republics, as The New Yorker once described Estonia. By investing in a sophisticated digital infrastructure, the Estonian government is enabling citizens and citizens to live most of their lives online. They can sign and digitally access virtually all government services using their unique Estonian digital identity, a system created in 2002.
In 2014, the world’s first e-resident program was launched in the country with the goal of reaching 10 million e-residents by 2025. Although only 85,000 people have become e-residents so far, the program has enabled entrepreneurs around the world to create more than 19,000 businesses digitally without the need to be physically present. From freelancers to seasoned entrepreneurs and digital nomads, Estonian e-residency has made it possible to run a company registered in the European Union online from anywhere.
The future of war is digital because the future of society is digital. Renewed hostilities between the Baltic states and Russia have become critical laboratories for assessing the direction of cyber conflict. Countries in the Middle East, such as the United Arab Emirates and Israel, are paying particular attention to how electronic warfare features are evolving and defense strategies are changing.
The reason is twofold. Over the past decade, the UAE has invested significant resources following Estonia’s model as a digital republic. From the adoption of blockchain resources at the government level to plans to create similar electronic residency programs, there is an indelible bond that connects the UAE to the Baltic States. In recent months, Emirati officials have also discussed the need to build a better cyber security infrastructure to protect the country’s knowledge economy.
Many analysts agree that the outbreak of conflict between the Gulf states and Iran will mean serious cyber attacks from both sides. Israel and Iran have already exchanged cyber attacks, and some fear that these attacks will go beyond military infrastructure and target important civilian targets.
Whatever happens, cyberattacks will define the future of the conflict, and moves by the Baltic states to defend themselves against Russian aggression should be closely watched to see how that future plays out.
In coordination with the union office
Joseph Dana is a migrant worker. Opinions expressed are personal.
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