The social and cultural shaping of cybersecurity capacity building: a comparative study of nations and regions

This paper presents an empirical study of the social and cultural aspects of cybersecurity capacity building in 78 nations. While nations within geographically defined regions might be expected to share similar attitudes, values, and practices around cybersecurity, this analysis finds that regional differences can be explained largely by cross-national differences in development and the scale of Internet use. These results question the centrality of regions in shaping social and cultural attributes directly tied to cybersecurity capacity. However, the analysis identifies some countries with greater and some with lesser levels of maturity in capacity building than expected only on the basis of their development and scale of Internet use. Further research focused on the dynamics of under- and over-performance of different nations might illuminate where regional contexts could place a brake on, or provide an impetus for, under- or over-performance in cybersecurity capacity building. That said, national development and the scale of Internet use are the most explanatory of cultural attitudes, values, and practices of societies tied to cybersecurity, such as trust on the Internet.