Estonia defends NATO from cybermen

A YEAR AFTER getting turned over by Russian hackers, Estonia is now piloting efforts to ward off future online attacks on NATO members.

Estonia and seven other alliance partners plan to set up the "Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence" in Tallinn next month. After all, everyone knows a Centre of Excellence creates fear in the heart of any hacker, despite the fact that the phrase usually just means 'office' in the words of ordinary people.

The United States, Germany, Italy, Spain, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia will spearhead the project presumably staffing the 'office' and keeping it supplied with pens, staplers and A4 paper.

Hillar Aarelaid, the head of Estonia's national anti-hacking task force said that cyber crimes and the number of criminals involved in cyber crimes were growing very fast.

The office will open in 2009, but is already starting work informally improving "cyber-defence interoperability" within NATO.

It will, apparently, be boosting international cooperation and legal mechanisms for cyber-defence, as well as drawing up an alliance-wide cyber-defence doctrine. So, in other words, a policy outfit.

The staff of 30, half of them members of the IT crowd, will also provide training, assess threats and steer research projects. That should have the million or so IT cyber crims alleged to be working behind the bamboo curtain quaking in their slippers. µ

L'Inq
AP