07 August 2020

The UK is the fourth most exposed country to cyber vulnerabilities in the world, according to new research.

Rapid7’sNationalIndustryCloudExpo- sure Report (NICER) for 2020, which placed Britain behind the US,China and South Korea, also found that that despite significant ef- forts on the part of the UK National Cyberse- curity Centre (NCSC) to encourage exposure reduction across all organisations, the UK’s share of SMB servers has increased by 22% from the same period in 2019.

However, the increase in SMB was offset by a 21% reduction in exposed Telnet services and11% reduction in exposed FTP services. Although the UK has fewer total vulnerabilities per-exposed service/system than other countries, due to continued efforts by the NCSC, these vulnerabilities account for under 38.4% of all exposed surfaces.

The report offers a data-backed analysis of the changing Internet risk landscape, measuring the prevalence and geographic distribution of commonly known exposures in the interconnected technologies that shape our world.

Rapid7’ research team calculated a country’s risk by measuring the total attack surface, (which reviews how much of a business is exposed to attacks); the total exposure of selected surfaces such as SMB and Telnet (which should never be exposed); the number of CVEs present, as more known vulnerabilities means more exposure; the distribution of vulnerability rates and the maximum vulnerability rate.