According to Lithuanian media, back on June 29, 2011, the Lithuanian government approved the National Program for Development of Electronic Information Security (cybernetic security) for the Years of 2011-2019.
In this area, Lithuanians are behind the Estonians, who adopted a similar strategy back in 2008 (i.e., one year after cyber-attacks by the Russian gang of the KGB (FSB) on the websites of Estonian state institutions, business organizations, political parties, as well as individual banks and companies that provide Internet services).
In Latvia, the legal regulation of cyber security is less developed: this issue is covered by the Law on Information Security Technology adopted in 2011, and there is no special program in this area.
It is known that NATO Center for Cybernetic Security has been established in Estonia. This is an important step demonstrating that the issue of cybernetic defense from Russia has gone beyond national borders. As the protection from politically motivated hacker attacks demand joint efforts and information sharing, it is a positive step forward..
However, such cooperation is not easy to establish: it is necessary to agree on measures to counter emerging threats; to create centers that would collect and analyze incoming information from different countries, etc. Today, criminal incomes in cyberspace have already exceeded profits from the drug dealing, and the frequency, complexity, and damage from cyber-attacks are only increasing.
That is evidenced by a 2009 network worm Conficker aimed against Microsoft Windows, Operation Aurora (the attack on Google from China in 2009) and virus Stuxnet that hit Iran's nuclear facilities etc.
In 2015, 10%, and in 2019 - 15% of the total funding for Lithuanian cybernetic security will be allocated to protect information systems.
At the same time, the tendency of increase the funding coincides with the tendency of growing incidents of informative nature. According to CERT-LT, in 2011 Lithuania investigated 21, 800 reports about incidents in the electronic space (almost twice more than in 2010). In this case, the relevance of cybernetic security is growing in the context of Lithuania's implementing long-term strategic projects.
It's no secret that Russia is not happy with the steps taken by Lithuania to strengthen its energy security. This raises the issue on possible Moscow's cyber attacks against Lithuania If we recall that "unknown" attackers decorated several dozen Lithuanian sites with totalitarian Soviet symbols in 2008, the answer is obvious.
Russian cybernetic forces today are among the largest in the world: According to deftools.com, they include 7,300 people with the annual budget of $ 127 million.
With such resource Russia is unlikely to think only about its own internal cybernetic security, the Lithuanian media warn.
Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center
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