SA cybersecurity ranking revealed

Which is the least cyber-secure country in the world?

According to our study, Algeria is still the least cyber-secure country in the world despite its score improving slightly. With no new legislation (as was the same with all countries), it is still the country with the poorest legislation (only one piece of legislation — concerning privacy — is in place). It also scored poorly for computer malware infection rates (19.75%) and its preparation for cyberattacks (0.262). Nevertheless, only its score for lack of preparation that worsened over the last year (and its score for legislation which couldn’t get any worse). In all of the other categories, attacks declined, as was the common trend for most countries.

Other high-ranking countries were Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Syria, and Iran, which took over from last year’s Indonesia, Vietnam, Tanzania, and Uzbekistan.

The highest-scoring countries per category were:

• Highest percentage of mobile malware infections – Iran – 52.68% of users
• Highest number of financial malware attacks – Belarus – 2.9% of users
• Highest percent of computer malware infections – Tunisia – 23.26% of users
• Highest percentage of telnet attacks (by originating country) – China – 13.78%
• Highest percentage of attacks by cryptominers – Tajikistan – 7.9% of users
• Least prepared for cyber attacks – Turkmenistan – 0.115
• Worst up-to-date legislation for cybersecurity – Algeria – 1 key category covered

Apart from Algeria, China was the only country that stayed at the top of one of these lists – all of the other countries are new since last year.

Which is the most cyber-secure country in the world?

Our findings revealed Denmark to be the most cyber-secure country in the world, taking over from Japan, which dropped four places to the fifth most cyber-secure country. Last year’s fourth most cyber-secure country, Denmark, scored incredibly low across the majority of categories, only scoring a little higher in the legislation category due to it not having specific laws that cover content and cybercrime.

Other top-performing countries included Sweden, Germany, Ireland, and Japan. France, Canada, and the United States were all pushed out of the top five most cyber-secure countries and into ninth, sixth, and 17th place, respectively.

Sweden’s score improved across all categories except for telnet attacks, but this was only due to a very slight increase from 0.45% to 0.49% and its legislation (which remained the same). Sweden was also the best-scoring country for financial malware attacks with only 0.1% of users affected.

Germany’s score improved dramatically due to a huge decline in financial malware attacks, dropping from 3% of users to 0.5%. Ireland’s score came from improvements in all categories, bar telnet attacks (where there was a minimal increase from 0.06% to 0.07%), and a significant improvement in preparation for cyberattacks (up to 0.784 from 0.675).

Japan’s poorer score came from an increase in mobile ransomware (from 1.34% to 1.97%), an increase in computer ransomware (from 8.3% to 9.17%), and telnet attacks from the country (while these reduced from 1.23% to 1.06%, this was still a higher figure than quite a few other countries). Its score for preparation for cyberattacks and cryptominer attacks did improve, however.

France fell out of the top 5 best countries due to a high rate of computers being infected with malware (over 15%). While Canada’s overall score improved, its position declined due to better scores from other countries. Canada also scored quite high for computer malware infection rates (10.24%). And the United States’ score declined significantly due to high computer malware infection rates (9.07%) and a high number of telnet attacks coming from the country (4.71%).

The lowest-scoring countries per category were:

• Lowest percentage of mobile malware infections – Finland – 0.87% of users
• Lowest number of financial malware attacks – Denmark, Ireland, and Sweden – 0.1% of users
• Lowest percent of computer malware infections – Denmark – 3.15% of users
• Lowest percentage of telnet attacks (by originating country) – Turkmenistan – 0%
• Lowest percentage of attacks by cryptominers – Japan – 0.17% of users
• Best prepared for cyber attacks – United Kingdom – 0.931 score
• Most up-to-date legislation for cybersecurity – France, China, Russia, and Germany – all seven categories covered

Read more on the next page about what’s changed in the last year.

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