Cyber Sovereignty

A nation’s journey towards Cyber Sovereignty

Cyberattacks come in a wide variety of forms and can defeat even the best cybersecurity measures. In today's borderless cyberthreat environment, nations around the world are constantly striving to retain the initiative over their cyber-enemies. As part of the process, they need to assess their Cyber Sovereignty to know how well they control the security of the cyberspace used in their own territory and for their activities abroad. 

A nation's Cyber Sovereignty depends on multiple factors, such as technological dependencies on foreign countries and the existence of national cyber resilience capabilities. But political considerations, the level of stakeholder maturity, the complexity of the cyber governance ecosystem and other key criteria also influence how fast and how far Cyber Sovereignty should and can be improved.

The United Nations’ ITU Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) measures the cybersecurity maturity of 193 countries across the globe. But Thales’s National Cyber Sovereignty Index™ (NCSI) provides a more specific assessment of national Cyber Sovereignty, helping individual nations to determine where they stand today and what they need to improve to achieve their Cyber Sovereignty goals.

Thales’s National Cyber Sovereignty Index™ covers six key areas: 

1. National Cyber Strategy
2. National Education & Training Strategy
3. National Research & Technology Strategy
4. Corporate Cyber Maturity Enhancement
5. Sovereign Solutions & Technologies
6. Governmental Capabilities
 

National Cyber Sovereignty, a strategic matter