BY SAM SKOVE TALLINN — When waves of cyber attacks struck Ukraine just before Russia launched its full-scale invasion last year, one small country familiar with such tactics rose to Kyiv’s aid: Estonia, the tech-savvy nation of just 1.3 million people.
“We helped to overcome the first shocking moments,” said Tõnu Tammer, head of the Incident Response Department at the Estonian Information Systems Authority. “We acted as a sort of conduit to put resources at the disposal of Ukrainians from the donors that wanted to contribute.”
A host of public and private entities would ultimately step in to help Ukraine respond to Russian hacking. Microsoft, for example, helped Ukraine transfer data to cloud systems beyond the reach of Russian missiles.
Estonia’s role as a cyber-defense coordinator is just one way in which the small Baltic country has adapted to the new security reality caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Tammer’s office is at the center of this work. The Estonian Information Systems Authority is in part responsible for guarding the networks of Estonia, a country so digitized that a majority of citizens voted online in the 2023 elections.
Estonia also provided Ukraine with dual-use cyber tools that could be used for offensive operations against Russia, said Tammer.
The tools are used to detect vulnerabilities, Tammer said, and therefore can either identify gaps in Ukraine’s defenses or identify gaps in Russian cyber defenses. But Estonia gave the tools for use in defense, he said.
“We hope that it's used in that sense,” he said. The limitations on the tool mirror U.S. policies, which do not support the use of U.S.-made weapons in Russia, a National Security spokesperson previously told Defense One.
Amid billions of dollars of Western military aid, Tammer said he and Western colleagues considered such aid to be uncontroversial. “You give ammunition and then you give cannons and then things like that, and you’re worried about some piece of software? It just doesn't add up,” said Tammer.
U.S. Cyber Command commander Gen. Paul Nakasone has said that his command conducted “offensive” cyber operations to support Ukraine.
Tammer’s work protecting Ukraine, however, is just an extracurricular. Protecting Estonians from cyber attacks, often originating from Russia, is the Incident Response Department’s main task.
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