{"id":19749,"date":"2018-07-10T15:46:52","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T15:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2018\/07\/10\/cyber-ambiguity-natos-digital-defense-in-doubt-amid-unstable-alliances\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T17:56:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:56:05","slug":"cyber-ambiguity-natos-digital-defense-in-doubt-amid-unstable-alliances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/global\/europe\/2018\/07\/10\/cyber-ambiguity-natos-digital-defense-in-doubt-amid-unstable-alliances\/","title":{"rendered":"Cyber ambiguity: NATO\u2019s digital defense in doubt amid unstable alliances"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2015 The banks were broken. In 2007, financial institutions across Estonia had difficulty carrying out the simplest of tasks. The banks\u2019 servers were overloaded by a swarm of digital requests, called a distributed denial-of-service attack. Simple account withdrawals suddenly became feats of digital heroics. The banks were not alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Email inboxes of Estonian journalists were flooded with spam. The Ministry of Defence\u2019s website went down. The Estonian government blamed Russia for the digital blitz. The crippling cyberattack lasted for three weeks and at the time was known as perhaps the most brazen act of cyber aggression by one state on another. But more than a decade later, the alleged Russian cyberattack on Estonia is seen as a rallying cry for NATO to bolster its cyber prowess. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the alliance counts cybersecurity as one of its core missions. It has placed a new cyber research center in the heart of the Baltic nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But amid what is viewed as a sustained campaign of Russian digital warfare on the West and the trans-Atlantic alliance \u2015 whose foundations are being questioned through a surge of populism \u2015 the very future of NATO\u2019s cyber strategy is left intentionally murky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a May speech, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he is often asked under what circumstances the organization would trigger Article 5 in the case for a cyberattack. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Article 5 is the alliance\u2019s principle of collective self-defense; an attack on one member nation is considered an attack on all member nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\t