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Risk Management Article
November 8, 2019

Which Countries Have the Best Cybercrime Response?

Three things in life are certain; death, taxes, and cybercrime. It doesn’t matter where you live, you will no doubt become the victim of some form of malware, have digital devices compromised through hacking, or be affected by some kind of data breach.

When it comes to cybercrime – whether it be on the national or international level – the question will always be whether the target – such as a critical infrastructure being hit by ransomware, a financial hack, or a malicious attempt to interfere with elections – is adequately prepared to respond and deal with what happens.

NordVPN, a provider of virtual private networks (VPNs) aggregated a range of threat-report data from Securelist, which included information on scores from the Global Cybersecurity Index on cyberattack readiness. These GCI scores – developed by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) – assess how ready a country is to respond to a cybersecurity threat on a scale of 0.0 – 1.0 based on five main factors;

  • Legal: The legal frameworks and institutions in place to deal with cybercrime and cybersecurity
  • Technical: the technical frameworks and institutions in place to deal with cybersecurity
  • Organizational: Cybersecurity strategies and policy coordination institutions on the national level
  • Capacity Building: Research and development, training and education programs; public sector agencies and certified professionals dedicated to the problem of cybersecurity.
  • Cooperation: The cooperative frameworks, partnerships, and information sharing networks in place.

 

The 10 Countries Most-Prepared and Least-Prepared for Cybercrime

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image: pcmag.com

It should come as no surprise that the most-prepared countries are also the most-developed in terms of technical capabilities and infrastructure. Singapore came top overall with a score of 0.925. The United States and Malaysia came in second and third with scores of 0.919 and 0.893 respectively.

Russia, Colombia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Sweden also got good overall scores. On the other side of things, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Tanzania, Slovakia, and Peru had some of the worst scores.

Preparedness can only do so much though. Cybercrime and large-scale cyberattacks – sometimes state-sponsored – are only going to get worse and more frequent. Even after improving infrastructure and being as prepared as possible, the organizations, businesses, and governments most at-risk of cyberattack are constantly trying to catch up to attacks and run damage control.

It’s recommended that all users take their security into their own hands. Don’t skip the basics when protecting yourself online and make sure that all-important information is encrypted.