According to a recent report comissioned by McAfee, to survey 250 leading authorities and 80 cyber security experts in the public and private sectors, the UK was awarded 4 stars and ranked top for Cyber preparedness, alongside the USA and Germany.

Recognition was given for the UK’s new cyber security strategy and the formation of the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance (OSCIA), however it did note that the UK has too high a reliance on the private sector.

The report provides the following top ten recommendations to improve cyber prepardness:

1. Build trust between industry and government stakeholders by setting up bodies to share  information and best practices, like the Common Assurance Maturity Model (CAMM) and the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA).

2. Increase public awareness of how individuals can protect their own internet data, and promote cyber-security education and training.

3. New problems and opportunities created by smart phones and cloud computing must be examined. Cloud computing needs an appropriate architecture to achieve optimum security levels.

4. Prioritise information protection, knowing that no one size fits all. The three key goals that need to be achieved are confidentiality, integration and availability in different doses according to the situation.

5. Consider establishing cyber-confidence building measures as an alternative to a global treaty, or at least as a stopgap measure, knowing that many countries view a treaty as unverifiable, unenforceable and impractical.

6. Improve communication between the various communities, from policy-makers to technological experts to business leaders both at national and international levels.

7. Enhance attribution capabilities by investing in new technologies, and establishing rules and standards.

8. Follow the Dutch model of a third party cyber-exchange for improved private-public partnership on internet security.

9. Despite the many practical hurdles in the way of transparency, both for private companies and for governments, find ways of establishing assurance – or trust – through the use of security mechanisms and processes.

10. Move the ball forward and encourage integration of cyber into existing processes and structures. Make sure cyber considerations and investment are present at every level.

Read the full report here