Estonia in vanguard of cyber-war campaign
Author: From:http://www.buyfastgold.com/VanGuard
IN THE early 1980s, Lieutenant-General Johannes Kert fought the Cold War in Soviet armoured units. Now the battlefield, like his loyalties, has changed.
His country, Estonia, is proudly in the NATO camp and the commander, who knows the chessboard from both sides, is adapting to a new conflict, cyber-warfare.
It is a war not of tanks and missiles but of laptops and cyber-armies.
At the NATO cyber-defence school in Tallinn, General Kert and his colleagues are warning the West about the deadly new dangers posed by cyber-warfare.
In Estonia, it is no longer the stuff of Hollywood fantasy, but reality, after protests by ethnic Russians in April led to a massive attack on the country's computer network, threatening its emergency services.
The widespread suspicion is that the Kremlin, which backed the protests, was involved ¡ª the assault included specialised computer techniques far beyond the average hacker. The assault has been hailed as the world's first real act of cyber-war.
"Usually, cyberspace security is an intimate matter for countries, and they don't like to talk about it much," General Kert said. "But it doesn't help if other countries can't learn what we have learnt."
Estonian Defence Minister Jaak Aaviksoo believes last year's attack should be a wake-up call for the West, where the growing dependence on technology brings growing vulnerability.
Having been forced to rebuild its rusting Soviet-era facilities almost from scratch, Estonia is now technically advanced.
The Government is converting a military barracks in Tallinn into the cyber-defence school, which will this year become fully operational with about 30 experts from NATO member countries.
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