Cybersecurity, Europe, Power & Security, Russia Cyberattacks, Russia, and the changing face of war in the 21st century

Amidst the severe destruction, staggering humanitarian crisis, and worldwide economic impacts that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has elicited in less than two weeks, officials around the globe have also raised concerns about the potential for cyberattacks. Examples of Russia’s previous actions in this realm have included attacks against the websites of Estonian organizations in 2007 and the hacking of Ukraine’s power grid in 2015.

To learn more about how cyberattacks have shaped modern warfare and how countries are adapting their strategies, Penn Today spoke with Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar, a Perry World House visiting fellow and director of the Digital Society Institute at the European School of Management and Technology. During the past 15 years, Tiirmaa-Klaar has led efforts to coordinate, prepare, and implement cybersecurity strategies across the European Union and also helped prepare the NATO Cyber Defense Policy.

How did you get involved in the field of cybersecurity?

In 2007, Estonia received a large-scale coordinated cyberattack. After that attack, the Estonian Ministry of Defense was in charge of putting together the national cyber strategy to make sure that our critical assets would be protected in the future.

I was previously working as a defense policy planner, and I ended up leading the process of putting together the first Estonian national cyber strategy after the 2007 attack. Ever since then, I have been working on cybersecurity issues.

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