This article analyses various e-threats that were expressed in media texts that focused on e-threat discourses concerning the Estonian identity card’s security risk in 2017. The discourse of cyberthreats contains strong and controversial meanings because the peculiarities of cyberspace remain intangible for average readers who do not possess expert knowledge regarding ICT. The wider aim of the paper is to suggest how the topic of e-threats could be given public coverage without fuelling irrational anxiety and unwarranted threat scenarios. Our theoretical basis combines the frameworks of the Copenhagen School of security studies and ideas of cultural semiotics. We explain the semiotic logic of phobophobia (i.e. the abstract concern with the devastating impacts of the collective feeling of fear) and the discourse of fear that is characterized by a significant reliance on analogies, drawing vague demarcation line between reference objects and the dominance of negative emotional tonality. Our study demonstrates that the main actors of threat and the consequences of the identity card’s security problems were associated with unknown hackers and the damaging of the reputation of Estonia as an e-state.

中文翻译：

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威胁的符号学：讨论爱沙尼亚身份证的脆弱性

本文分析了媒体文本中表达的各种电子威胁，这些文本侧重于2017年有关爱沙尼亚身份证安全风险的电子威胁言论。网络威胁的言论具有强烈而有争议的含义，因为网络空间的特殊性对于普通读者而言仍然是无形的不具备有关ICT的专业知识。本文的更广泛的目的是建议如何在不引起非理性焦虑和不必要威胁威胁的情况下使电子威胁这一话题得到公众关注。我们的理论基础结合了哥本哈根安全学院的框架和文化符号学的思想。我们解释恐惧症的符号逻辑（即 集体恐惧感的破坏性影响所引起的抽象关注）和恐惧话语，其特征是极大地依赖类推，在参考对象之间形成了模糊的分界线，而负面情绪调性则占据主导地位。我们的研究表明，威胁的主要参与者和身份证安全问题的后果与未知的黑客以及爱沙尼亚作为电子州的声誉受到损害有关。