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

When examining cybersecurity risks throughout the world, it is no question that cyber crime spreads everywhere. In so many different countries, there are reports of many different cyber threats that each country is facing. Many studies have tried to examine the different risks amongst different countries and rank them in which countries face the most cyber threats. The United States is one of the highest yielding cyber crime activities in the world. In a journal entitled, “Cyber Crime Nation Typologies: K-Means Clustering of Countries Based on Cyber Crime Rates” a lot of different countries cyber crimes are compared and ranked via K-Means Clustering. The journal mentions that the five top nations with the most crime are the United States, China, Brazil, Germany, and India. When looking closely, it can be noted that all of these countries are well-versed in the technical world and have had plenty of time to get accustomed to all of the growing technologies. Also, there is no surprise when mentioning that these countries are wealthier respectively. The United States, being one of the wealthiest countries along with a growing technical community, has made it one of the nations with the most cyber crime. The United States is “targeted the most by phishing attacks, suffering 60% of worldwide phishing volumes.” Due to the number of whales, or high profile targets, the United States suffers with a lot of these kinds of attacks. Comparing this to a different country, such as Nigeria, it is much lower. The journal separates the different countries into different clusters. In these clusters, countries with similar indexes of crimes and status are placed together. The United States is in cluster 3, while Nigeria is a part of cluster 2. In cluster 2, there a lot of countries that specialize in advance fee fraud and scams. “Nigeria tends to be the most well-known as a top source of advance fee fraud schemes.” This is important to note because it shows the difference between the countries listed in cluster 2 versus 3. With the United States, in cluster 3, having so many wealthy users, it makes them more of a target for countries in cluster 2, such as Nigeria. This can help explain why the United States faces many phishing attacks and why Nigeria is one of the top countries that are involved with fraud and scams.

References:

Kigerl, A. (2016). Cyber Crime Nation Typologies: K-Means Clustering of Countries Based on Cyber Crime Rates. International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 10(2), 147–169.