A NATO Cyber-Defense Center in Estonia To Thwart Russian Hackers

Estonia Defense Minister Joak Aaviksoo has presented a proposal that equates hackers' attacks on the servers of the state with military attacks. Experts at NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) are reviewing the proposal. A cyber-defense center of NATO is about to be set up in Estonia that will aid the country in coping with attacks from Russian hackers. Kommersant published this as news on May 17, 2007.

On 27th April 2007, some such attacks started, following the repositioning of a Soviet era war commemorative, a 'bronze-soldier' monument, from Tallinn to Estonia's capital town.

Estonia Defense Chief Ants Laaneots broached the topic of the aggression at a meeting of NATO and the EU military committees in Brussels during May this year giving the issue an international status.

Aaviksoo carried further the discussion in another meeting of NATO in Brussels on 13th May 2007. Urmas Paet, Estonian FM (Foreign Minister), also wants a discussion about the issue at the summit between EU and Russia on 18th May 2007. Kommersant published this as news on May 17, 2007.

Meanwhile the Estonian police arrested a teenager from Tallinn for causing a DoS attack on the country's Internet servers thus disrupting the servers' functioning.

A spokesperson for the office of the prosecutor said that the young boy posted calls for the assaults on Estonian websites and provided IP-addresses for government sites aimed as targets.

Even though Estonia suffers many attacks from foreign lands, it intends to nail down those who try to block the key online portals of the country. So this may be said as just the beginning of Estonian investigation. Authorities continue to track the perpetrators. Official sources said many trails lead to Russia.

Central Criminal Police's Ivo Kolk said that his team together with other private security and state services professionals could trace the routes of the main attack. Viruslist published this as news in second week of May this year.

Estonia is a notable European for having an e-government system. It also has computer geniuses like the creators of Skype Web telephone system, and many talented employees of the Microsoft Corp.

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» SPAMfighter News - 5/22/2007