International Telecommunication Union launched global project on cybersecurity

In occasion of a presentation made at the 14th edition of the World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC 14)  held  in Dubai and dedicated to the theme  "broadband and sustainable development", the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Hamadoun Touré introduced the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) project.

This initiative responds to the need to ensure, both at national and international level, effective and viable measures of safety and protection for those critical information infrastructures essential to each nation's security and economic well-being.

Coordination among authorities, private sector and citizens at national level and Cooperation at international level seem to be the key approach to implement ad hoc strategies for prevention, preparation, response, and recovery from incidents.

Background

By December 2013, targeted countries were invited to participate to the benchmarking exercise aimed at assessing the current situation of each nation state against the GCI by filling out a questionnaire.

The information provided to the index allowed the Union and nation states to better address the specific cybersecurity needs of any country by setting out the most appropriate strategy of intervention and identification of most viable tools.

 Analysis
This joint project developed by ITU in collaboration with ABI Research with the participation of the International Multilateral Partnership against Cyber Threats (IMPACT) aims to measure and rank the level of cybersecurity of each nation state by analysing the following five main areas:

Conceptual framework

  

Current status

To date already 44 countries submitted their responses (green colour) and other 15 will soon provide their questionnaires. For those not replying, the index score will be calculated using secondary data.
Comprehensive data were collected for the Arab States and later processed in the  following table.