ITU ranks USA most secure nation on Global Cyber Security Index, UK in tie for second with Saudi Arabia
The United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU) published its 2020 Global Cyber Security Index on Tuesday, and listed the US first in overall ranking, followed by a tie for second place tie between the UK and Saudi Arabia.
The index ranks nations using 82 questions developed by a panel of experts. ITU members are asked to nominate a person to participate in the process, and the organisation conducts desk research on nations that choose not to play. All ITU members are then ranked on a 100-point scale.
The report opens with good news: the median score for the 2020 index is 9.5 per cent higher than in the 2018 edition. Small nations also did well, and there were some big improvers.
Estonia, for example, ranked third. South Korea, Singapore and Spain tied or fourth, while Russia, United Arab Emirates and Malaysia shared fifth, followed by Lithuania, Japan, Canada, France and India.
Another positive finding from the Index is that the number of governments that formed a national computer incident response team (CIRT) rose by 11 per cent since 2018, meaning around half of ITU members now have a CIRT (or CERT). Sixty-four per cent have adopted a national cybersecurity strategy (NCS), up from 58 per cent, and 70 per cent conducted cybersecurity awareness campaigns in 2020, up from 66 percent.
