Cyberthreat issues are global. Countries cannot easily close their borders to incoming cyberthreats. Time and geography, as well as the location of victims, are no longer barriers to where and when these attacks are launched by cybercriminals. Attempts to try to solve these challenges at the national or regional levels have proven insufficient. Legal and technical measures at the national and regional levels are necessary, but not sufficient, to address these global threats.
 

To put in place a global solution to address those challenges, it is vital that all countries arrive at a common understanding of what cybersecurity means. Cybersecurity is about providing protection against unauthorized access, manipulation and destruction of critical resources and assets, such as data. The value of these resources and assets vary from country to country and depend in part on the level of development and type of economic activities. Their value also depends on what each country considers to be its critical resources, the efforts it is willing and able to make and its assessment of the risks that it is willing to accept, in a trade-off with the cybersecurity measures that it is prepared to implement.

Many Least Developed Countries consider cybersecurity mainly as a means to extend the benefits of ICTs through the delivery of secure and high-trust services in sectors such as health, commerce, public administration and finance. Their needs, priorities and strategies in cybersecu¬rity are not necessarily the same as those of the most developed countries. However, quite a number of developed countries, in addition to other threats such as online fraud, consumer protection and privacy, also consider cybersecurity solutions as a way to protect and maintain the integrity of their critical infrastructures in the financial, health, energy, transportation, telecommunica¬tion, defense and other sectors. Critical Information Infrastructure Protection (CIIP) is thus high on the agenda of most, if not all, countries.

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