During a recent meeting between Finnish Parlimentary Speaker Eero Heinaluoma and Estonian Foreign Minister Ulmas Paet held in Tallinn, Estonia particular emphasis was put upon the co-operation that exists between Finland and Estonia. “Estonia and Finland contribute to the development of the Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region and the digital market,” remarked Ulmas Paet.
Indeed Estonia has in recent years been dubbed ‘E-stonia’ due to some major advancement in cyber technology which includes Estonia’s involvement in the creation of the now globally employed computer communication system, Skype. After experiencing Cyber-war in 2007; government, financial and media computer networks were paralyzed by a series of attacks, which authorities ultimately concluded originated in Russia, Estonia took stock and remodeled their cyber defense systems and tightened up their on line digital IDs formats. Much help and advice in this was provided by the Cyber Defense League, a volunteer group organization made up of programmers, computer scientists and software engineers. Estonia is also the base for Cooperation Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCDCOE), a NATO-approved think-tank that creates new strategies for the understanding and prevention of online attacks. The center is used internationally as a base for information sharing and research.
