Analysis of Cybersecurity Strategies Across Continents

Abstract

Cyberthreats are a global challenge and because of that countries across the world have been establishing and developing national cybersecurity strategies (NCSS). NCSSs are a way in which countries can present their political and social approach to cybersecurity in the sense of national security. The main principles of a NCSS are addressing the current cybersecurity landscape that the country in question has, the goals of future national cybersecurity development and how to achieve that desired state of national cybersecurity affairs. Being part of the country’s national, political and cultural landscape, the actual cybersecurity strategies naming policies may differ from country to country. Although the most common goals are similar between different states’ cybersecurity strategies, they have different emphasis regarding the role of citizens, the private sector and the public sector in national cybersecurity. This study aims to analyze and compare NCSSs from different continents and recognize the focus areas in the three crucial target groups: citizens, private sector and public sector. NCSSs of 20 different countries from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Australia and Oceania and South America were analyzed. All the strategies were collected from public sources and represent the latest version of selected countries’ cybersecurity strategies. The strategies were analyzed using the Commitment to Development (C2D) approach. The Democracy Index was utilized in the study to recognize and differentiate countries based on their index rating. The main findings of this study were that with a few exceptions countries sharing similar Democracy Index rankings have similar attitudes towards their citizens, private sector and public sector. The results also varied in a continental perspective, and some continents align better with each other than others.