Japan is behind other major countries in the field of cyber capabilities, including a military strategy pertaining to cyberspace, a British think tank said, putting the country in the lowest tier among 15 countries surveyed.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies said in its cyber capabilities assessment report released Monday that Japan is in the third tier along with countries like North Korea, Iran and Indonesia, behind second-tier countries China, France, Israel, Russia and Britain.
"A sustained cyberattack on the country's infrastructure would be highly compromising, especially since national cyber resilience is still at a developmental stage," the IISS said.
Japan is reliant on the United States in cyber intelligence and will likely remain so in any kind of offensive response to cyber threats in the future, partly due to constitutional constraints on offensive military capability, it said.
"Japan still does not have an official military cyber strategy or an official military doctrine pertaining to cyberspace," it added, calling the country's resilience planning "rather limited" despite efforts for enhancement driven by security concerns surrounding the upcoming Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
As for the private sector, "the major obstacle to improving cyber resilience is the lack of willingness among companies to share information regarding cyber incidents," it said.
The report said the United States, the only country in the first tier, retains "a clear superiority over all other countries" in terms of information and communications technology empowerment, though it is "not a monopoly position."
China's cyber defense remains weak compared to the United States, and cyber-resilience policies for its critical infrastructure are in the early stages of development, the report said.
Given the country's growing industrial base in digital technology, however, "it is the state best placed to join the United States in the first tier," it said.
