Introduction to Regions

Introduction to Regions

Last year we analyzed incidents and presented them from a macro-region perspective for the first time. This year we once again visit (where possible) the various regions of the world in an attempt to provide readers with a more global view of cybercrime. As one might expect, we have greater or lesser visibility into a given region based on several factors such as contributor presence, regional disclosure regulations, our own caseload and so on.

Do you live and work in an area of the world that is not mentioned below? Do you feel that more focus should be given to your sphere of operations? Then contact us about becoming a data contributor and/or encourage other organizations in your area and industry to share their data so that we can continue to expand and refine our coverage each year. It is important to keep in mind that if you do not see your region represented here, it does not necessarily mean that we have no visibility at all into the region, but simply that we do not have enough incidents in that geographic location to be statistically relevant.⁷⁴

We define the regions of the world in accordance with the United Nations M49 standards, which combine the super-region and sub-region of a country together. By so doing, the regions we will examine are as follows:

APAC: Asia and the Pacific, including Southern Asia (034), South-eastern Asia (143), Central Asia (143), Eastern Asia (030) and, last but certainly not least, Oceania (009).

EMEA: Europe, Middle East and Africa, including North Africa (002), Europe and Northern Asia (150) and Western Asia (145).

NA: Northern America (021), which primarily consists of breaches in the U.S. and Canada.

⁷⁴ Don’t blame the messenger. We don’t make the rules here (they are made by the Illuminati and Inter Galactic Aliens, or something like that).