I've just read an interesting article outlining the Estonian defense following the recent 'Internet War' (PDF available here, originally sourced from SecurityFocus).

I'll bypass the underlying history and political factors as I'm nowhere close to being knowledgeable enough to comment. One aspect that did impress me (assuming the account is accurate) is the organisation and collaboration between many disparate organisations and individuals in the face of a wide-spread issue.

I'm slightly concerned that, to me, one of the main parts of the article states that as a result of this more politicians and civilians are aware of the issues of computer security and the impact attacks can have. Whilst I hope this is the case, when discussing the issue with colleagues and contacts few knew of issues even during the time they were covered on mainstream news. One aspect of the article I'm going to keep on file states


This may just explain to average users why anyone would be 'interested in their machines'.

Hopefully this may be a wake-up call for some, but I'm concerned that I may be right in predicting that similar issues are going to have to hit closer to home before most change their current practices.