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Which Country is #1 in Cybersecurity?

Last week was Independence Day in the United States and Canada Day. These holidays celebrate freedom and independence. Security is a key component of independence. If a country is not secure, it is dependent  on others for freedom.

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The security of a country used to be thought of in terms of soldiers, guns and other physical structures. With the advent of computers, security evolved to mean information security. 
 
Today, if a country cannot control its cyber assets, it is not secure. Examples of nation-on-nation cyber attacks abound. Criminal-on-nation attacks occur every day. If a country does not have secure systems, it’s citizens are vulnerable to privacy invasion. The financial institutions that support the economy are vulnerable to theft with insecure cyber systems. The critical infrastructure of a country are also at risk if a country is not mature.
 
Which countries are the most secure? There are reports and articles that try to answer this question.

 

The International Telecom Union produces an annual Global Cybersecurity Index. The Index is the most thorough ranking of country-by-country maturity. The report looks at countries in terms of their maturity in terms of legal, technical, organizational, capacity building and cooperation. The thorough report lists these countries as the top in cybersecurity:

  1. United Kingdom“The Active Cyber Defense program has prevented thousands of attacks and reduced the average time a phishing site is online from 27 hours to 1 hour.”
  2. USA
  3. France
  4. Lithuania – “To consolidate functions and resources, which were previously scattered, the National Cyber Security Center has been created.”
  5. Estonia
  6. Singapore
  7. Spain“The National Cybersecurity Council strengthens the relations of coordination between the different public and private sector.”
  8. Malaysia
  9. Canada

 

Analytics Insights ranks these countries at the top of the Cybersecurity ranking:

  1. USA – “58% of the digital security organizations are situated there.”
  2. Russia
  3. Israel
  4. China “In 2017, China has adopted another Cyber Security Law and it’ fundamental intention was to strengthen the cyber security and the national security.”
  5. Spain
  6. Estonia“After facing a bad cyber attack in 2007, Estonia has turned into a worldwide heavyweight in cyber security.”

 

CyberDB lists these countries in their top 10:

  1. USA
  2. Israel
  3. Russia
  4. Canada “The federal government of Canada isexpected to spend up to $1 billion on cybersecurity”
  5. United Kingdom
  6. Malaysia
  7. China
  8. France
  9. Sweden“Sweden has the lowest rate of malware infections in the world”
  10. Estonia

 

Comparitech compares countries as well.

  1. Japan – “Lowest percentage of mobile malware infections at 1.34% of users.”
  2. France
  3. Canada
  4. Denmark “Lowest percentage of mobile malware infections at 5.9% of users.”
  5. USA
  6. Ireland
  7. Sweden
  8. United Kingdom
  9. Netherlands
  10. Singapore

 

The methodology of the different rankings are not the same, so their findings do not match. CyberDB and Analytics Insight are more subjective, whereas Comparitech and ITU have a set methodology.

ITU Analytics Insights CyberDB Comparitech
United Kingdom 🇺🇸 USA 🇺🇸 USA Japan
🇺🇸 USA Russia Israel France
France Israel Russia Canada
Lithuania China Cananda Denmark
Estonia Spain United Kingdom 🇺🇸 USA

The common countries on all four lists stand out as the USA , so they are the winner based on this sample of rankings. Stay Independent as an organization, business or government entity by focusing on cybersecurity.

Companies can fall victim to state-sponsored attacks. Work with a Managed Security Service Provider to put a robust defense in place.

Did you enjoy this blog article? Comment below with your feedback.

3 Comments

  1. Ce Wilson

    Which country will be the best in training a cybersecurity engineer… for defence and for attack?

    Reply
  2. Ria Sharma

    Also,the US is where the industry leaders are: Arguably most of the innovation and product leadership in the industry is driven by US companies (Symantec, Palo Alto, Blue Coat, Trend Micro, FireEye, etc). Saying so, Japan seems to have the cyber threats under control though. Is it that Japan cyber security is stronger or US hackers are stronger?

    Thank you
    A student from Ec Council University

    Reply
  3. Tsultim Gyamtso

    My wish would be like to gain some Practical work experience both in USA and JAPAN to sharpen my Cyber Security Engineer Skills in the near Future. Appreciate for your Insight.

    Have a beautiful Day everyone
    A System and Networking Professional Student

    Reply

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