A gray area between the state of war and peace has emerged over the past few years. Intimidation through the use of threats of armed aggression has taken a back seat to the acts of cyber aggression as a means of political pressure. Last week Nordic regional governments met to discuss on topics that included cyber security. The Foreign Ministers of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden met in Reykjavik on 8–9 June 2009 to discuss ways to strengthen cooperation in the areas of foreign affairs and security policy. Acting individually, Nordic countries have limited capacity to address the growing threat of cyber warfare. The Nordic countries agreed to work collaboratively to enhance, maintain and promote their exceptionally high level of society-wide cyber security. This cooperative agreement will focus on the National Computer Emergency Response Teams and other authorized information security incident response authorities across the Nordic region.
Finland announced the formation of a cyber unit. The unit is expected to be fully functional by early 2011 and will operate 24/7/365 to defend against both civilian and military cyber attacks. The units primary mission will be monitoring data security, detecting attacks and coordinate counter-measures and response to attacks.
Finland Fun Facts:
Population — 5,250,275
Area — 338,145 sq km
Language — Finish and Swedish
Currency — Euro
Life Expectancy — 78
GDP per Capita — $37,200 USD (totaling $195 billion)
Defense Budget — 1.3 percent of GDP
Finland is just one of many countries that have recognized the need to establish cyber defenses given the continued escalation of acts of cyber aggression. Currently, over 140 countries are estimated to have active cyber weapons programs with more being added monthly. Today governments, technology companies, the media, infrastructure providers and even our citizens are all targets of cyber attacks. One official I spoke with on the promise of anonymity said, We all need to learn a valuable lesson from the cyber attacks on Estonia and Georgia and that is cyber attacks constitute a real and significant threat to our governments and peace. Finland, the U.S. and many other countries are ramping up for the rapidly advancing cyber arms race and many are hoping they are not too late!
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
The Finns don’t dress like that anymore unless it is for something special. They have paved roads, cell phones, indoor plumbing, street lights, cars, and pretty much everything we do.
Helsinki is a modern city.
LOL @ picture of sammi people.
Posted by: Jack D. Ripper at June 12, 2009 05:58 PM
Lies! all Lies! even now they are building longships to go a viking.
This would be equivalent to showing the folks who ‘live’ in a Pilgrim town here in the US.
The Finns I know would laugh at that that picture.
The Finns I know would laugh at that picture.
You can laugh at the Finns – but if the cyber war gets much worse then Santa Clause might not be able to make his visits next Christmas.
Ok ok, who’s been giving Kevin crack again.
It’s all very funny guys, but it’s just irresponsible. What if his mother should read this ?
Oblat
Get real! I talk to one reporter and two others over there and there are at least two other reports about this – so what is your issue?
Oblat
I am not sure what your issue is but multiple sources confirmed the recent announcement by the Finish Government about the formation of their Cyber Unit. The data about Finland came from the CIA World Fact Book – so again what is the issue?
So when do we get the party started?
I’m ready to rip it up!
Kevin, it isn’t the text. The picture. Please do something about the picture. Imagine showing a native American display or a Pilgrim display as a typical American. That picture does the same thing to the Finns.
Jack and everyone else – I DO NOT HAVE CONTROL OVER THE PICTURE!!!!!! The blog administrator selects the pictures. Every now and then I turn one in with the text and sometimes they use them, but NOT THIS TIME.
FYI I had the flag og Finland on the doc I turned in!
The Fins fought with the Germans early in WWII because the Russians invaded Finland.–
no.
They wanted more land for strategic purposes.—
wait, what? do you even understand what a shit you told here?
—Russia was definitely not an Ally in the beginning of WWII.–
for idiots like you;
Russia wasnt Soviet Union. only a part of it.
Good interesting story, and I love the picture. Now we only need quality comments.
Russia and Germany had the Molotov
Oblat YOU ARE THE LAST PERSON I EVER WANT SPEAKING FOR ME! You got kicked off one blog and it seems you are working on the second!
Anyways, my original question is if Finland is creating a CyberForce, to protect against military threats, is Russia the largest concern?–
definitly, no. Finland has a completly diffenret position, than Estonia or other former Soviet Union countries being or going to be a part of EU. There are maybe some border incidents containing failed russian or finish jet-routes and drunken citizens crossing the border in the polar night, but on the other side Finland has the best border agreements with Russian Federation.. So is Finland a part of EU defense and very active in a developing of friendly relationships with russians.
OK YOU WERE RIGHT (AGAIN)!!!!
Your called in a few posting ago. South Korea’s military computer networks are under ever-growing cyber attack with 95,000 cases reported daily.
Link
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5icCIbghINhIn9f1HzkgzhPZvOCDw