Q: Compare cybersecurity risks in the U.S. and another country.

A: Cybersecurity threats and risks continue to grow and threaten users of technology as time goes on, especially in our country of the United States; however, it’s also important to note that cybersecurity risks can also affect anyone from around that world. In fact, even large countries such as China can go through practically the same malicious and dangerous cybersecurity attacks that the United States does. According to Alex Kigerl, a writer for Washington State University, states that the most common instances of “cyber crime” in the world, like spam, botnets, phishing emails, and ransomware attacks, occur in both the United States and China (Kigerl p. 148). In fact, in terms of cyber attacks, the United States and China are among “the top 5 nations” that are the most targeted countries for cyber based attacks, with “Brazil, Germany, and India” behind them (Kigerl p. 148). Despite being so targeted by hackers, there are varying differences between the two countries. For example, botnets, or a “network or cluster of malware-infected machines” that sends spam emails, are more likely to be found to be sent to China, with the United States not even making the top 5 (Kigerl p. 149). On the other hand, phishing emails, where an individual attempts to steal personal information or “‘goods’ through deceit”, is more common in the United states, with a whopping “60% of worldwide” phishing attacks out of the entire world (Kigerl p.149). Furthermore, both the United States and China are huge targets for ransomware attacks, which is the event where a hacker encrypts an individual’s computer or files, “making them inaccessible to the victim”, unless they pay the hacker to decrypt it (Kigerl p. 150). In comparison though, the United States also faces more “advance fee fraud” attacks, which is similar to phishing emails in which a malicious entity offers a user some reward in return of providing an “advance fee” (Kigerl p. 149). In essence, China seems to fall more susceptible to attacks that come from computer malware or programs, while the United States appears to be more susceptible to social-engineering based attacks. All the same though, the prevalence of cybersecurity risks everywhere continues to prove that cyber threats are becoming more and more of a glaring risk for the world. 

References:

Kigerl , A. (2016). Cyber Crime Nation typologies: K-means clustering of countries based on Cyber Crime Rates. cybercrimejournal. Retrieved February 4, 2023, from http://www.cybercrimejournal.com/Kigerlvol10issue2IJCC2016.pdf