On 1 July, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) published its Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) for the year 2020, measuring the efforts of 194 member states in enhancing cybersecurity. Armenia ranked 90th, Azerbaijan 40th and Georgia 55th in the index. 

The GCI analyses the legal, technical, organisational, capacity development and cooperative measures of its member states. The report highlighted that since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, internet traffic had increased by 30% along with an increased recognition of cybersecurity risks. 

Armenia’s overall rating was 50.47, scoring 12.87 in legal, 13.86 in technical, 4.87 in organisational, 7.85 in capacity development and 11.02 in cooperative measures. The area of technical measures was highlighted as an area of relative strength and the area of organisational measures as an area of potential growth. Azerbaijan’s overall rating was 89.31, scoring 20.00 in legal and cooperative measures (areas of relative strength), 19.19 in technical, 13.14 in organisational (area of potential growth) and 16.99 in capacity development measures. Georgia’s overall rating was 81.07, scoring 17.75 in legal measures (area of relative strength), 17.13 in technical, 14.67 in organisational, and 15.89 and 15.63 in capacity development and cooperative measures respectively (areas of potential growth). 

Armenia and Azerbaijan were classified as CIS region states, ranking 6th and 3rd respectively (out of 9), while Georgia was classified as a country of the Europe region, ranking 30th (out of 46). The USA, UK, Saudi Arabia, and Estonia were the best rated countries in this year’s edition. Russia ranked 5th, Turkey 11th and Iran 54th in the index.