Africa, Middle East Lead Peers in Cybersecurity, but Lag Globally

SecurityScorecard’s Cyber Resilience Scorecard, presented at WEF, finds the Middle East (overall B) and Africa (C) outperform GDP peers yet still lag in resilience due to outdated/end-of-life technology, slow patching, endpoint/network weaknesses, and ransomware exposure; both regions face significant talent shortfalls (about 102k immediate need within a 402k workforce) and are pursuing initiatives such as Nigeria’s Virtual Cyber Hub and cross-border threat intelligence to build capability. The report notes that stronger economies generally have better cyber readiness, calls for greater capital investment and more affordable solutions, and observes common attack types (DDoS, ransomware) with a large share of global attacks originating from China, Russia, Turkey, and Japan.