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If we talk about cybersecurity, we can think of the United States or Russia. China or North Korea may also come to mind. However, the surprise comes when none of these countries is the cyber defense expert, but a much smaller one that barely monopolizes the focus of the rest of the world: Estonia.
With just 1.3 million inhabitants, the Baltic country is well above its weight when it comes to online safety. The capital is Tallinn, which is home to the NATO Cyber Defense Center, the cooperative cyber defense center of excellence.
“Estonia went digital long before other countries, focused on things like online education and online government services, and took a more proactive approach to technology,” said Esther Naylor, international security research analyst at Chatham House.
Almost anything a person could want or need from the government can be done online. Estonia has created secure IT system, fostered international cooperation and invested a lot of money and time in training its citizens. And above all, the country is in continuous search for improvements in its system, at a time when hackers and cyberattacks are increasingly present.
According to CNN, a new report from the European Union showed that serious cyberattacks in Europe and the United States have multiplied in the last year. At last Wednesday’s summit held in Geneva between the president of the United States, Joe Biden, and the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, one of the topics discussed was cybersecurity. “Certain critical infrastructure areas should be off-limits to cyber attacks, but the United States has significant cyber capability and will respond to any additional incursions,” the current US president said.
But Estonia knows, like Biden and like much of the planet, that Russia presents itself as a cyber threat, and he has already suffered it in his flesh. In 2007, it was decided to move a Soviet-era monument from central Tallinn to a military cemetery. In the Baltic Sea country, protests against the Soviets broke out, making Estonia a target for cyberattacks. Moscow always denied it, but, for the Estonian government, it was an act of war. Banks, media or government services were the target of these attacks, forcing them to interrupt their services for a certain period of time – in some cases, up to three weeks – and even to withdraw.
That cyber attack was a turning point
Almost fifteen years have passed since then. The country was already a leader thanks to its services such as online voting and digital signatures. “We began to understand that hefake news is really important and that people can be manipulated, and that we need to better protect our systems, and that this is not just about systems, but also about understanding the role that people play in systems. ”says Birgy Lorenz, Cybersecurity Scientist at Tallinn University of Technology .
And after that cyber attack, the Baltic government took its cyber systems even more seriously. Estonia began to push for greater international cooperation – through NATO and other organizations; established a data embassy in Luxembourg, a super secure data center containing backups in the event of an attack on the territory; He was an early adopter of blockchain technology, and created a cyber unit within his Estonian Defense League.
But it is well known that all innovations can be a double-edged sword, and just as they are created to do good, they can be used to do evil. But this did not happen in Estonia, since the great secret of this leadership was, with all (cyber) security, its people.
“Even if you build the safest system possible, if the user does something bad or wrong or something that he is not authorized to do, then the system degrades very quickly”, Comments Sotiris Tzifas, cybersecurity expert and CEO of Trust-IT VIP Cyber Intelligence.
A high investment
The Estonian government has invested heavily in education and training programs in recent years, and rulers have made sure that all Estonians have access to the training they need to keep the country’s computer systems safe.
The brain behind these shows is Lorenz. “To get talent, you need the crowd to choose talents, so we already have training sessions and competitions for primary school children,” says the scientist.
Citizen awareness, monitoring of possible attacks and flexible countermeasures. The recipe that gives you a successful cyber defense. German Chancellor Angela Merkel or the King of Belgium have already asked Estonia for advice.
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