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OAS and Estonia Promote Exchange of Best Practices on Cyber Security

The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Government of Estonia, through its Estonian Information System Authority (RIA), concluded today a four-day training event on the development and management of National Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT) from April 27-30, in Tallinn, Estonia.

The course was delivered by the Computer Emergency Response Team for Estonia (CERT-EE), and was designed for technical level officials responsible for the development and management of their country’s national CSIRTs. Government officials from Costa Rica, Guyana, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Uruguay are attending the event.

The OAS Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza, highlighted that “the relationship developed with the Government of Estonia is a great example of the type of long-term partnerships that the OAS Cyber Security Program has been promoting,” and that “such partnerships are essential to address threats of transnational nature, such as cyber security and cyber crime.”

The Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE), Neil Klopfenstein, stressed that training such as that taking place in Tallinn are “an excellent opportunity for governments of the region to learn about best practices in the development and establishment of a national CSIRT, and Estonia is one of the most interesting cases to learn from.”

This is the first activity organized under the “OAS Cyber Security Initiative” of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE). Earlier this month, Estonia joined the governments of Argentina, Chile and Mexico, and the OAS General Secretariat in launching this initiative at the Global Cyber Space Conference (GCCS) that took place in The Hague, Netherlands.

This training activity was also one of the many activities of the OAS Cyber Security Program that has received support from the Government of Estonia in recent years. On March 27, 2015, the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (CICTE) of the OAS Secretariat for Multidimensional Security (SMS) received a financial contribution from the Government of Estonia to promote the development of cyber security capabilities in the Americas. The contribution followed the signature, on October 20, 2014, of a memorandum of understanding between the Estonian government and the OAS, aimed at increasing collaboration between the hemispheric institution and the European country on cyber security.

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-160/15