National Cybersecurity and Popular Products Across the World

In a digital age, data security is a top priority, but it can be difficult to know who exactly is  responsible for securing sensitive information. While companies may feel they have sufficiently secured their own data, those that utilize SaaS vendors in their business put their sensitive information and business data in the hands of these vendors, who store it in the cloud or on-premises at their location.

There are a number of security considerations and variables a business should keep in mind, especially related to cloud security. But it's helpful to remember one simple question when considering vendors or evaluating current protection efforts: Does the country housing my data care about security?

Countries that do have taken action to protect personal and business data stored in their country or region. Other efforts to protect personal information include enforcing security standards, developing national cybersecurity strategies, and providing public awareness campaigns, among others. Countries that received lower scores have done less to ensure businesses are protecting data and require less transparency between data collectors and individuals. 

In a globalized world, servers could be housed in any number of countries other than the one your business or a software vendor operates in. Still, it should be considered a potential red flag if vendors operate out of extremely vulnerable geographical regions. 

Every year, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) releases the results of a worldwide security survey titled the United Nations Global Cybersecurity Index (CGI). The index provides an overall security rating based on a number of factors related to legislative, organizational, technical, capacity building, and international cooperation.

This map reflects CGI ratings and color-codes them accordingly. Dark red corresponds to poor security ratings, while dark blue represents a favorable security rating. To illustrate the highly globalized markets and wide geographic distribution of software vendors, we’ve paired the most-reviewed products with their respective home nations. 

This table, viewable below, orders countries by their CGI rating and links to the most popular software solution headquartered in each individual country.

This information does not take into consideration the specific location of data storage or other computing infrastructure a vendor may be using. It simply matches widely reviewed software products to their vendors' home countries. 

Region	Country	CGI Rating		Product	Reviews
Europe	United Kingdom	0.931		Telegram	2498
Americas	United States of America	0.926		Slack	3437
Europe	France	0.918		Rydoo	511
Europe	Lithuania	0.908		MailerLite	84
Europe	Estonia	0.905		Toggl	454
Asia-Pacific	Singapore	0.898		Ahrefs	166
Europe	Spain	0.896		TravelPerk	768
Asia-Pacific	Malaysia	0.893		Piktochart	108
Americas	Canada	0.892		Shopify	3287
Europe	Norway	0.892		Kahoot!	228
Asia-Pacific	Australia	0.89		Trello	5613
Europe	Luxembourg	0.886		Talkwalker	97
Europe	Netherlands	0.885		Sketch	908
Asia-Pacific	Japan	0.88		Cacoo	69
Africa	Mauritius	0.88		TotalSend	1
Europe	Georgia	0.857		ELEAD1ONE	53
Europe	Finland	0.856		MariaDB	178
Europe	Turkey	0.853		Uptimerobot	22
Europe	Denmark	0.852		Falcon.io	424
Europe	Germany	0.849		SAP Concur	4107
Arab States	Egypt	0.842		Instabug	156
Europe	Croatia	0.84		Mediatoolkit	34
Europe	Italy	0.837		BEE	99
Asia-Pacific	China	0.828		Fotor Photo Editor	167
Europe	Austria	0.826		eversign	579
Europe	Poland	0.815		Landingi	170
Europe	Belgium	0.814		Showpad Content	280
Europe	Hungary	0.812		Prezi	4451
Europe	Sweden	0.81		Pixlr	384
Arab States	United Arab Emirates	0.807		One.com	18
Asia-Pacific	Thailand	0.796		Adsoup	6
Asia-Pacific	New Zealand	0.789		AskNicely	578
Europe	Switzerland	0.788		Doodle	1856
Europe	Ireland	0.784		Teamwork Projects	393
Europe	Israel	0.783		Wix	1050
Asia-Pacific	Indonesia	0.776		Mailbird	40
Europe	Portugal	0.758		Altitude Xperience	41
Europe	Latvia	0.748		Zabbix	120
Europe	Slovakia	0.729		LiveAgent	1056
Europe	Bulgaria	0.721		WPX Hosting	48
Asia-Pacific	India	0.719		Adapt	500
Europe	Slovenia	0.701		ISL Light	41
Americas	Uruguay	0.681		Flokzu	18
Europe	Ukraine	0.661		NEWOLDSTAMP	440
Europe	Cyprus	0.652		3CX Phone System	90
Africa	South Africa	0.652		BrandsEye	17
Africa	Nigeria	0.65		School Time	11
Asia-Pacific	Philippines	0.643		SyncApps	112
Europe	Serbia	0.643		Semaphore	67
Europe	Albania	0.631		Publer	17
CIS	Belarus	0.578		GanttPRO	96
Americas	Brazil	0.577		Runrun.it	347
Europe	Czech Republic	0.569		IntelliJ IDEA	1303
Europe	Romania	0.568		Paymo	402
Arab States	Jordan	0.556		ZenHR	7
Europe	Liechtenstein	0.543		Reachbird	6
Arab States	Tunisia	0.536		TensorFlow	35
Europe	Greece	0.527		Thea Render	24
Asia-Pacific	Bangladesh	0.525		Mukto Pharmacy Management	6
CIS	Armenia	0.495		Renderforest Video	158
Europe	Malta	0.479		Hotjar	131
Americas	Chile	0.47		Todoist	441
Asia-Pacific	Sri Lanka	0.466		Hiveage	6
Europe	Iceland	0.449		SimplyBook.me	91
Americas	Argentina	0.407		Panda Security	94
Asia-Pacific	Pakistan	0.407		CloudLead	14
Americas	Panama	0.369		FontLab Studio	10
Americas	Venezuela	0.354		SocialGest	16
Asia-Pacific	Nepal	0.26		e-School	10
Africa	Seychelles	0.259		BitMEX	13
Arab States	Yemen	0.019		Wekan	14

The table only includes countries with software vendors who have received more than 5 reviews for their products on G2.

For more information and a better understanding of the variables factored into the CGI rating, check out the Global Cybersecurity Index 2018 yourself.