Category Archives: Cyber Defense

Estonian Defence Forces to set up Cyber Command of 300 hackers

The Estonian Defence Forces next year will create Cyber Command, which, if necessary, will also take cyber attacks against both virtual and physical targets.

“It will begin to carry out cyber-attacks in the entire spectrum, which means both defense and, if necessary, attack,” explained the undersecretary of the Ministry of Defense Erki Kodar meeting today in Tallinn with the international press. Kodar pointed out that Estonia does not plan to use the cybersecurity’s capability to act only in cyberspace, but also, if necessary, in other areas of warfare, in other words to attack physical targets.

“All of this activity must, of course, be based on Estonian law and in accordance with international law,” Kodar confirmed.

The unit should begin work on August 1, 2018 and achieve full capacity for work by 2020. By that time, 300 people should serve the cyber command. The cyber command is not very common in the world or in NATO allied countries. A similar entity already works in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and the Netherlands. Next year Estonia will be added to the list.

The number 300 is a big number for the small Estonia. This will be very expensive for the Defence Forces, because these specialists are paid a lot in the private sector.

Links:
https://geenius.ee/uudis/eesti-kaitsevagi-loob-300-pealise-hakkerite-uksuse-mis-hakkab-vajadusel-ka-fuusilisi-sihtmarke-rundama/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKC-nWRfez4

Guardtime to design new NATO Cyber Range platform

Guardtime announced today that they have been awarded a contract by the Estonian Ministry of Defence under the auspices of NATO to design the next generation NATO cyber range. The new range design will considerably enhance NATO’s cyber, electronic warfare and intelligence, test, rehearsal, and mission refinement capabilities and promote effective cooperation and collaboration of state of the art tools, techniques, and procedures (TTP) to provide NATO range users with a credible capability and options for blue and red team planning activities.

Martin Ruubel, President of Guardtime Estonia said: “When designing and building the defence focused exercise ranges, Guardtime always aims at the principle: “We train as we fight”. For NATO we will provide a state of the art flexible, operationally relevant and representative environment design that enables integrated simulation and training and collaboration for a wide variety of blue and red team cyber mission exercise areas, enabling NATO cyber range users the ability to securely collaborate and refine their tools and tactics.”

It is interesting that Guardtime, the company providing blockchain-based log integrity solutions, has ambition to design new NATO Cyber Range platform. Seems that Guardtime’s plans to become general-purpose cyber security service provider.

Links:
https://guardtime.com/blog/guardtime-awarded-contract-for-nato-cyber-range
http://bravenewcoin.com/news/blockchain-developers-guardtime-to-design-next-generation-nato-cyber-range-capability/