Pakistan is ranked 67th out of 165 nations in a global index that measures the commitment of nations across the world to address cyber security.

India is ranked at 23rd while Bangladesh has been ranked at 53rd.

The top 10 most committed countries to cyber security are:

Singapore United States Malaysia Oman Estonia Mauritius Australia Georgia France Canada.

Russia is ranked 11th. The index has been topped by Singapore with a score of 0.925.

Pakistan is ranked 67th on the index with a score of 0.447 while India is 23rd on the index with a score of 0.683. Both the countries have been listed in the “maturing” category, which refers to 77 countries that have developed complex commitments to cyber security and engage in cyber security programmes and initiatives.

An Initiative by UN

The second Global Cyber Security Index (GCSI), released by the UN telecommunications agency International Telecommunication Union (ITU), said only about half of all countries have a cyber security strategy or are in the process of developing one and urged more countries to consider national policies to protect against cyber crime.

The Global Cyber Security Index (GCSI) is a survey that measures the commitment of member states to cyber security in order to raise awareness. The GCSI revolves around the ITU Global Cyber Security Agenda (GCSA) and its five pillars (legal, technical, organizational, capacity building and cooperation). For each of these pillars, questions were developed to assess commitment.

Through consultation with a group of experts, these questions were weighted in order to arrive at an overall GCSI score. The survey was distributed through an online platform through which supporting evidence was also collected.

One-hundred and thirty-four member states responded to the survey throughout 2016. Member states who did not respond were invited to validate responses determined from open-source research.

As such, the GCSI results reported herein cover all 193 ITU Member States. The 2017 publication of the GCSI continues to show the commitment to cyber security of countries around the world.

Improvement Across The Board

The overall picture shows improvement and strengthening of all five elements of the cyber security agenda in various countries in all regions. However, there is space for further improvement in cooperation at all levels, capacity building and organizational measures. The gap in the level of cyber security engagement between different regions is still present and visible.

The level of development of the different pillars varies from country to country in the regions, and while commitment in Europe remains very high in the legal and technical fields in particular, the challenging situation in the Africa and Americas regions shows the need for continued engagement and support.