Top cyber security experts will focus on the role of IT in national security at a meeting next week in Tallinn, an official at NATO's Tallinn-based cyber defence centre said Wednesday.

"The conference will be attended by various cyber security experts and professionals from related disciplines in governments, military and academia to discuss the growing connection between computer security and national security," NATO cyber defence centre spokeswoman Liisa Tallinn told AFP.

The four-day international conference tackling the issue of cyber conflicts takes place in the Estonian capital June 15-18 and is organised by the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence created by the NATO Western defence alliance in Tallinn.

Keynote speeches on cyber defence will be delivered by cryptographer Bruce Schneier and Melissa Hathaway, former cybercoordination executive for the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, a position popularly known as "cyber czar".

Schneier is the author of several books on computer security and cryptography.

"When people in world want to know how IT security really works, they turn to Schneier," Tallinn said.

Charlie Miller, a known hacker of Mac products, will also attend the conference, Tallinn added.

Having joined both NATO and EU in 2004, Estonia suffered massive cyber attacks on its institutions in the spring of 2007 amid a dispute with Russia over a Soviet war memorial. Moscow denied involvement.

Estonia, sometimes called also e-stonia for its IT savvy, has often been praised internationally for its IT innovations and various e-services widely used by its 1.3 million population.