Are you more likely to have better cybersecurity depending on where you live in the world? ESET researchers took a closer look into the data for 24 European countries, examining how each one of them tackles cybersecurity and how prevalent various forms of cybercrime are affecting the region’s residents.
The European Countries with top cybersecurity scores
Each country was assigned a cybersecurity score, calculated by a range of factors. Taking into account how exposed each region was to potential attacks, their commitment to cybersecurity, cybersecurity legislation and the number of residents falling victim to various types of cyber attacks.
1. Portugal – 8.21 cybersecurity score out of 10
Portugal tops the list as the most cyber-safe region in Europe, boasting very low numbers of people who have fallen victim to malicious software, social media hacking, online banking fraud and identity theft. Coupled with legislation in five categories (national strategy, content, privacy, critical infrastructure and commerce), this earned Portugal its title as the best European country for cybersecurity.
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2. Lithuania – 7.99 cybersecurity score out of 10
With a cybersecurity score of 7.99 out of 10, Lithuania takes the second spot, with a particularly high result for their commitment to cybersecurity. With 0.908 out of 1, Lithuania also has the fourth highest score for their commitment to making online spaces safe.
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3. Slovakia – 7.21 cybersecurity score out of 10
The final country in our top three is Slovakia, with a cybersecurity score of 7.21 out of 10. This country ranks well in terms of exposure, a factor measuring whether sites and services are at risk of exposure due to a lack of protections put in place. With an exposure rank of 62, Slovakia has fewer services at risk of exposure compared to other countries.
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The European Cybersecurity Index
The 24 European countries below have been measured on various factors covering their response to cybersecurity issues and the risk posed to residents when they are online. The factors have allowed us to assign a cybersecurity score out of 10 to each country, indicating how secure a region is and how this impacts its inhabitants.
Methodology:
We analysed each country on the following factors, giving each a normalised score out of ten on each factor before taking an average score across all factors, with countries omitted if data wasn’t available for each one of the factors.
- Exposure Rank – The score is taken from Rapid 7’s National Exposure Index 2018 with a lower number in the ranking indicating a higher risk of exposure.
- Commitment to Cybersecurity – Taken from the ITU publication Global Cybersecurity Index 2018 and is scored on a scale of 0-1.
- Victims of Malicious Software, Social Network or Email Hacking, Online Banking Fraud, Identity Theft – These four factors were taken from the Eurobarometer survey, Europeans’ Attitudes Towards Cyber Security with percentages indicating the percentage of victims to each of these factors in the last three years.
- Cybersecurity Legislation – This comes from the Cyber Regulation Index and looks at seven possible categories for cybersecurity legislation. The number given indicates the number of these categories in which each country has legislation.
The original article, courtesy of ESET UK can be found here.
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