A lot of information can now be found about people online — photos, private conversations, bank accounts details. Yet with so much at stake, there are not many truly cyber-secure countries.
Ukraine, under frequent cyberattack, most probably by hackers connected to the Kremlin, should be one of them, but according to a study published on Feb. 6 by British tech research firm Comparitech, it is not.
In fact, it’s one of the worst.
The study claims Ukraine to be the 10th least cyber-secure out of 60 countries researched — slightly more secure than Iran, and slightly less than Nigeria. About 28 percent of Ukrainian computers and 11 percent of phones were infected with malware in 2018 alone.
Algeria, Indonesia, and Vietnam are the least cyber-secure countries. Meanwhile, Japan is the most secure country in the world, according to the findings, with France, Canada, Denmark, and the United States running up.
According to the research, some countries scored well in one category but had poor scores in other areas. “These include Ukraine, which had the lowest financial malware rate…” it reads.
When estimating cybersecurity, Comparitech looked into seven criteria and averaged each country’s score across them, namely:
- percentage of phones infected with malware;
- percentage of computers infected with malware;
- number of financial malware attacks;
- percentage of telnet attacks (by originating country);
- percentage of attacks by cryptominers (mining cryptocurrency without the user’s permission);
- best-prepared countries for cyberattacks;
- countries with the most up-to-date legislation.
Each of these criteria had equal weight in the overall score. And apart from the latter two, all of the scores were based on the percentage of attacks in 2018.
“Despite some countries having clear strengths and weaknesses, there is definite room for improvement in each and every one. Whether they need to strengthen their legislation or users need help putting better protections in place on their computers and mobiles, there’s still a long way to go to make our countries cyber-secure,” the study reads.
Comparitech said the landscape of cybersecurity constantly changes and thus countries constantly had to try and “get one step ahead of cybercriminals.
All the countries surveyed had room for “significant improvements,” the study concluded.
The Kyiv Post’s technology coverage is sponsored by Ciklum and NIX Solutions. The content is independent of the donors.
