Impact of Internet and mobile communication on cyber resilience: A multivariate adaptive regression spline modeling approach

Abstract

The spread of broadband Internet and the availability of mobile communication services expand access to digital services for businesses and the public alike. However, at the same time, it aggravates the problem of ensuring digital space security, protection against cyber threats, and the fight against cybercrime. This research aims to calculate the index of a country's resilience to cyber-hacking for 143 countries, to divide these countries into groups based on this resilience (high, above-average, average, below-average, and low), compare these results with those obtained on the basis of National Cyber Security Index (NCSI), and to identify the impact of the Internet and mobile communication prevalence in a country on this level. The selection of the countries is based on the availability of statistical data for 2022 in the databases of the Surfshark VPN service, and the International Telecommunication Union. The integral index of a country's resilience to cyber-hacking is calculated through the multiplicative convolution (with weighted geometric mean) of the number of breached accounts, the Internet penetration probability (penetration into users’ data through the Internet), and the breach density per thousand users. The influence of active mobile broadband subscriptions (per 100 inhabitants), mobile broadband basket (% of Gross National Income Per Capita), mobile cellular subscriptions (per 100 inhabitants), and total fixed broadband subscriptions on the integral index of a country's resilience to cyber-hacking is investigated using multivariate adaptive regression spline. According to the calculations, France, Iceland, Montenegro, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates were the least resistant to cyber hacking in 2022. For countries with high, above-average, and below-average levels of resilience to cyber-hacking, the most relevant factor is the number of active mobile broadband subscriptions (per 100 inhabitants). For countries with an average level, it is total fixed broadband subscriptions.