NATO Ponders Cyberdefense Policy

NATO , the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has concluded that cyberwarfare, especially cyberdefense, must become a priority among its 26 members.   The decision came at a meeting this week, following a concerted series of cyberattacks against member nation Estonia. Those began in April and lasted for several weeks. The supposed catalyst was Estonia removing a Soviet war memorial in its capital of Tallinn. The attacks were on the public information infrastructure of Estonia. After they’d lasted for three weeks, NATO sent an official to investigate.   Approximately a million computers were employed – often without their owner’s consent – in the denial of service (DoS) attacks, which overwhelmed Estonian government and corporate web sites, shutting them down. Many of the attacks were traced to Russian computers, but the Russian government has denied any involvement.   Now NATO officials are debating the matter, both the specifics of cyberattacks, and also the bigger picture: should cyberwarfare be considered as similar to traditional warfare? If so, what should NATO’s response be? More particularly, what can be done to prevent it?   After the meeting at NATO’s Brussels headquarters in Belgium, spokesman James Appathurai said,   “There was sentiment around the table that urgent work is needed to enhance the ability to protect information systems of critical importance to the Alliance against cyberattacks. Therefore, that will be, I am sure, a subject of work here within NATO starting tomorrow or maybe Monday.”