New Zealand has maintained its ranking of sixth in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s (ASPI) International Cyber Policy Centre (ICPC) second annual Cyber Maturity in the Asia-Pacific Region 2016 report. New Zealand’s ranking was 74.6 out of 100, putting it in sixth position. The top five were: United States, 88.1; South Korea, 83.6; Japan, 82.9; Australia, 80.9; Singapore, 80.2.
The report says New Zealand has been highly active this year, improving its score in several areas. “It has published a new cyber security strategy and passed new cyber bullying legislation to support its already strong cyber governance approach. The recent release of the national plan to address cybercrime and a defence white paper will provide structure and improve its capacity to address the different types of threats that emanate from cyberspace.”
The report identifies New Zealand’s greatest improvement to its digital economy as being “an increasingly mature two-way collaboration between industry and government, and extensive government initiatives to boost digital development.” It notes: “New Zealand has also announced plans to establish a national CERT capability and a $NZ2 billion investment to improve Internet infrastructure.”
The report explains that it builds on methods used in 2014 and 2015 to assess a country’s cyber maturity. It considers five key areas that, as a whole, encompass whole-of-nation approaches to cyber policy and cyber security: governance; financial cybercrime enforcement; military application; digital economy and business; social engagement.
Within each of these are a number of indicators. These were weighted according to their importance to a state’s cyber maturity and a group of cyber experts and stakeholders from government agencies and the private sector rated them on a scale of 1 to 10.
ICPC aims to facilitate conversations between government, the private sector and academia across the Asia–Pacific region “to increase constructive dialogue on cyber issues and do its part to create a common understanding of the issues and possible solutions in cyberspace.”
It claims to “bring together the various Australian Government departments with responsibilities for cyber issues, along with a range of private-sector partners and creative thinkers to assist Australia in creating constructive cyber policies at home and abroad.”