This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race

by Nicole Perlroth

Studies have shown that—digitally speaking—the safest countries in the world, those with the lowest number of successful cyberattacks per machine, are actually the most digitized. The safest are in Scandinavia—Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden—and more recently, Japan. Norway, the safest of them all, is the fifth most-digitized country in the world. But Norwegians implemented a national cybersecurity strategy in 2003 and they revisit and update it every year to meet current threats. Norwegian companies that provide “basic national functions”—financial services, electricity, health services, food supply, transportation, heating, media platforms, and communications—are required to have a “reasonable” level of security. The government penalizes companies that do not perform penetration testing, threat monitoring, or adhere to other best security practices. Government employees are required to use electronic IDs, multifactor authentication, and encryption. And Norwegian corporations have made cybersecurity core to their training and corporate culture.