Wall Street Journal_Estonia’s Prime Minister Talks Business Tech (December 3)

03.12.2007

Estonia is a little country with a big goal: to become the Silicon Valley of Europe.

It boasts some impressive bona fides: Almost all of the country’s bank transactions take place electronically, the government is paperless and people vote online, and the popular Internet voice service Skype was invented in Estonia. Still, few U.S. companies have invested there.

In order to spur investment, Estonia is opening an embassy in Silicon Valley – San Jose specifically — and another one in the online world Second Life. Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip tells the Business Technology Blog that he hopes these two offices will make people in the U.S. more aware of the opportunities for their businesses in his country.

Having so many critical services online has one potential downside: Estonia is vulnerable to cyber attacks. Estonia was the victim of a so-called denial-of-service attack earlier this year, where millions of computers inundate a Web site with requests for data. The attackers targeted government Web sites and banks, which were down for two weeks in some cases.

Prime Minister Ansip tells us that it will take an international effort to stop these attacks, including the formation of emergency-response teams and a harmonizing of Internet laws. For example, while it’s illegal to use a computer to commit a crime in most countries, it isn’t illegal for hackers to take control of people’s computers in some – a critical precursor to a cyber attack. (It’s a legal gray area in Estonia, but the Prime Minister tells us he’s working to change that.)

This will only become a more important issue for countries and businesses as critical services move online. “It’s a growing threat to every country,” Prime Minister Ansip tells us.

Article printed from Business Technology: http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech

URL to article: http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2007/12/03/estonias-prime-minister-talks-business-tech/