Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Internet, Legislation, Technology

The aim of the cyber hygiene initiative, developed by the Estonian defence ministry, is to develop a common standard for safe cyber behaviour, as well as to create an e-learning environment to better educate employees about cyber threats.

Estonian and Latvian ministries of defence will start using the standard for behaving in cyberspace, and will make it compulsory for workers to pass a corresponding e-learning course once a year. The same standard and training will be implemented by other countries that join the cyber hygiene standard. The aim is to expand the cyber hygiene initiative to cover all of Europe.

Today, the initiative was signed in addition to Estonia by the Netherlands, Austria, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and in the name of the European Union, by the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini.

Estonian Minister of Defence Sven Mikser said that for Estonia it is important to be a leader in areas in which we have a good competence and knowledge we have accumulated that we can pass on to other allies.

"Estonia has a very good reputation in the field of cyber security and hence we are also expected to show cyber security boosting initiative," said Mikser. "Since 95% of cyber incidents happen because of human ignorance or error, it is important to raise awareness among users of different levels of the dangers of cyberspace and about the best practice in the prevention of dangers."

The cyber hygiene initiative aims to substantially reduce the amount of cyber incidents caused by human factor and also to increase the awareness of ordinary users as well as technical specialists and managers of different levels of various cyber threats. It is estimated that 70-80% of cyber threats risk profile can be avoided by implementing cyber hygiene.