The Cyber Defense Index is a ranking of 20 of the world’s major economies according to their collective cybersecurity assets, organizational capabilities, and policy stances. It measures the degree to which these economies have adopted technology practices that advance resilience to cyberattacks and how well governments and policy frameworks promote secure digital transactions.
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Overall ranking
pillars
comparative
The overall rankings tab shows the performance of the examined economies relative to one another and aggregates their scores across four pillars: critical infrastructure, cybersecurity resources, organizational capacity, and policy commitment.
This pillar indicates how well each country is served by robust and secure digital and telecommunications networks and computing resources that underpin primary economic activity. In addition to an overall indicator of telecom capacity, as assessed by the UN, these metrics incorporate the country’s number of data centers and secure servers. This pillar also includes indicators derived from our global survey in which respondents assessed the robustness of each country’s critical infrastructure.
This pillar collects several views of the technological and legal enforcement “assets” in each country that prevent improper access and use of data. These include the ITU’s holistic assessment of cybersecurity capabilities, our own ranking of digital privacy protections, and survey respondents’ views on how well cybersecurity tools and infrastructure are applied in their market.
This pillar measures the relative cybersecurity maturity and digital experience of the country’s businesses and institutions. This includes a measure of digital participation in government the extent to which organizations are familiar with artificial intelligence, and survey respondents’ assessments of the degree to which cybersecurity capabilities are strategic and formally integrated in their organizations.
This pillar measures the comprehensiveness, quality, and efficacy of a country’s regulatory environment in enhancing and promoting resilient cybersecurity practices. This measure incorporates the World Bank’s evaluation of the government’s effectiveness and the quality of its cybersecurity regulation, as well as survey respondents’ assessments of the robustness and completeness of that regulation.
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experts
MIT Technology Review Insights would like to thank the following expert commentators for their time and insights:
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Magda Chelly, Senior Cybersecurity Expert, Founder of Women on Cyber, and Co-Founder of Responsible Cyber, Singapore
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Michael Henri Coden, Co-Founder and Associate Director at Cybersecurity, MIT Sloan (CAMS), and Senior Advisor at BCG Platinion, United States
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Sadie Creese, Director, Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre, and Professor of Cybersecurity, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
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Terry Cutler, Creator of the Fraudster Mobile App, Cybersecurity Expert, and Founder and CEO of Cyology Labs, Canada
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Alexander Klimburg, Head of the Center for Cybersecurity, World Economic Forum, Austria
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Manion Le Blanc, Head of International Cyber Policy Sector, Security and Defense Policy Division, European External Action Service, Brussels
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Clay Lin, Director World Bank Information and Technology Solutions, and Chief Information Security Officer, United States
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Andrew W. Lo, Professor of Finance, Director, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering, United States
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Andrew Milroy, Cybersecurity Advisor, Founder of Veqtor8, Singapore
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Taylor Reynolds, Technology Policy Director, MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative, United States
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Denis Robitaille, World Bank Group Vice President, Information and Technology Solutions, and WBG Chief Information Officer, United States
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Daniel Weitzner, Founding Director, MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative, United States
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Yufei Wu, Professor, Center for Information and Communication Technology, University of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
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About
Methodology: The Cyber Defense Index 2022/23
The MIT Technology Review Insights Cyber Defense Index rates and ranks the world’s largest and most digitally-forward economies’ capability to prepare against and respond and recover from cybersecurity threats. It assesses 20 of the world’s major economies (largely members of the G20 forum, excluding Russia and adding Poland) according to how well their institutions have adopted technology and digital practices to be resilient against cyberattacks and how well governments and policy frameworks promote secure digital transactions .
The Index was developed by combining two broad sets of input data:
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Secondary source data, including global digital technology adoption statistics and policy and regulatory data, largely sourced from international institutions and benchmarks.
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A global survey of 1000 senior executives (with an equal number of respondents from each country ranked in the Index) who have cybersecurity responsibilities for their respective organizations. Forty-three percent of respondents were CIOs, CTOs, or chief security officers. Respondents were asked to rate the effectiveness of technology adoption and policy and regulation formation, and of their own cybersecurity activities, as well as to comment on their technology development priorities over the next two to three years.
Both sets of data informed a series of indicators—lists of qualitative and quantitative factors—which were then selected, populated, and organized into four pillars. Data from secondary sources was converted into scores. This was done for the indicators sourced from survey responses as well, where each country’s responses were ranked according to their variance from the global mean.
The use of survey data in the CDI is intended to provide “boots on the ground” assessments of the current operating conditions for maintaining cybersecure environments. This is similar to the way purchasing manager indexes or business confidence indexes incorporate the views of professionals on their own (or their country’s) relative performance.
The indicator data was subjected to trend analysis, informed by primary research interviews with global cybersecurity professionals, technology developers, analysts, and policymakers. This was complemented by a consultative peer review process with cybersecurity technology analysts. Based on these inputs, weighting assumptions were assigned to determine the relative importance with which each indicator and pillar influenced a country’s cybersecurity posture.
The four pillars of the CDI are:
This pillar indicates how well each country is served by robust and secure digital and telecommunications networks and computing resources that underpin primary economic activity. In addition to an overall indicator of telecom capacity, as assessed by the UN, these metrics incorporate the country’s number of data centers and secure servers. This pillar also includes indicators derived from our global survey in which respondents assessed the robustness of each country’s critical infrastructure. These pillar’s indicators collectively represent 30% of the CDI’s score.
This pillar collects several views of the technological and legal enforcement “assets” in each country that prevent improper access and use of data. These include the ITU’s holistic assessment of cybersecurity capabilities, our own ranking of digital privacy protections, and survey respondents’ views on how well cybersecurity tools and infrastructure are applied in their market. At 35%, this pillar contributes the largest portion of the Index’s score.
This pillar measures the relative cybersecurity maturity and digital experience of the country’s businesses and institutions. This includes a measure of digital participation in government the extent to which organizations are familiar with artificial intelligence, and survey respondents’ assessments of the degree to which cybersecurity capabilities are strategic and formally integrated into their organizations. This pillar accounts for 20% of the overall score.
This pillar measures the comprehensiveness, quality, and efficacy of a country’s regulatory environment in enhancing and promoting resilient cybersecurity practices. This measure incorporates the World Bank’s evaluation of the government’s effectiveness and the quality of its cybersecurity regulation, as well as survey respondents’ assessments of the robustness and completeness of that regulation. This pillar accounts for 15% of the overall score.
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