NCSI: Cybersecurity regional trends
By Radu Serrano
Many governments have accelerated their digitalization and e-governance projects to support and serve their citizens. These projects are complex and intricate endeavors that must take into consideration cybersecurity in order to succeed and benefit all. The NCSI shows clearly trends the governments follow, best practices they use and the gaps, that should be analyzed and filled.
Based on NCSI data analysis, the latest cybersecurity trends show us that globally, the focus is on cybercrime prevention and personal data protection, followed by eID and trust services, incident response, education, and policy development. The global national cybersecurity snapshot still seems to be reactionary in this effect, rather than proactive.
Figure. Latest cybersecurity trends: best and worst efforts by regions. Source: NCSI data as of January 2022
Nevertheless, once we analyze the different regions, we see some different patterns appear. Africa’s average efforts emphasize personal data protection, cybercrime prevention, and education, while lacking in crisis management and essential and digital service protection. Their data protection efforts are at the global average level. On the other hand, Oceania’s regional focus is on cyber incident response, cyber threat analysis and the fight against cybercrime; but not so much on the protection of services, essential and digital, nor cyber crisis management.
Asia has peak efforts in the fight against cybercrime, cyber incident response, and education, the last two of which are above the global average levels. However, there is still work to be done in the protection of digital and essential services and personal data. Regionally, America is focusing on the fight against cybercrime, incident response, personal data protection, electronic ID (eID) and trust services and education. However, their values are lower than the global average. Only their military cyberoperations excel over the global average. Finally, Europe presents balanced efforts, with work to be done in terms of cyber threat analysis, cyber crisis management, cyber military operations and global efforts and cooperation.
The NCSI’s usefulness as a research database is unparalleled. We’ve received and responded to queries from researchers from the University of Malaya (Malaysia), the Namibia University of Science and Technology, the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (Sweden), the University of Malta, among others, on the data and methodology of the NCSI. Since the collected evidence is publicly available information, we are happy that it is being used in other sectors and research.
Moreover, individual countries, like Georgia and Finland, have continuously been using it to develop their national cyber security.
The NCSI at a glance
- The NCSI (the National Cyber Security Index) is a global live index, which measures the preparedness of countries to prevent cyber threats and manage cyber incidents. The NCSI is also a database with publicly available evidence materials and a tool for national cyber security capacity building. Updated continuously by the NCSI team, 100+ country contributors and eGA’s interns.
- Visit NCSI.ega.ee to explore it yourself! If you your country is not yet in the NCSI, or you would like to update some of your country’s information, contact the NCSI team via .