The Internet is a key infrastructure for businesses, individuals, and the public sector alike and continues to expand rapidly. Originally designed as a research network, the Internet’s subsequent commercialisation and expansion have necessitated updates to the data protocols that ensure its functioning. IPv6 was introduced in 1999 to succeed IPv4 and provides significantly greater address space but is being implemented relatively slowly. While around 50% of Internet traffic in Belgium uses the IPv6 data protocol, the share in most countries appears to be 20% or less.
The Internet of Things (IoT) includes all devices and objects whose state can be altered via the Internet, with or without the active involvement of individuals. While these connected objects may require the involvement of devices considered part of the “traditional Internet”, laptops, tablets and smartphones are excluded from this definition (OECD, 2018b). Such devices could soon be a fundamental part of the everyday lives of people in OECD countries and beyond. IoT applications span major economic sectors including health, education, agriculture, transportation, manufacturing, power generation and distribution, and many more. One part of the underlying infrastructure of the IoT is machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. Among OECD economies, Sweden has by far the highest penetration (number of M2M SIM cards per inhabitant), although this is chiefly because M2M SIM cards supplied and registered in Sweden are provided to companies throughout the European Union. The number of M2M SIM-cards is growing fast and has doubled in the OECD area between 2014 and 2017.
The rapid spread of digital technologies and the reliance on digitised information creates new challenges for the protection of sensitive data and ensuring the confidentiality of network communications. Secure servers used for the exchange of sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card numbers, are vital infrastructure underpinning e-commerce and many other online activities. According to data from the June 2018 Netcraft survey, 32.6 million secure servers (which implement SSL/TLS), were deployed worldwide in June 2018, up 72% from 19 million servers in June 2017. Growth rates accelerated markedly in 2014, having grown by around 20% year-on-year previously. In 2018, the United States accounted for the largest number of secure servers (12 million), representing 37% of the world total, followed by Germany (3.6 million, 11%) and the United Kingdom (1.6 million, 5%). The United Kingdom also has the highest rate of secure servers in comparison to the total number of servers in the country, at 33% in 2018, and up from 18% a year earlier. However, the share of secure servers in most countries is still low relative to the total number of servers. For example, in the United States less than 3% of all servers hosted use SSL/TLS, while the OECD average is only 3.2%. This is just one specific aspect of cybersecurity, further indicators can be found in Chapter 8.
