Digital Technologies as a Factor of National Security of Ukraine

Abstract

Digitalization has a significant impact on the sovereignty of the state and its national security. In its turn, national security determines the measures and requirements that apply to the informatization of society and information security. The relationship between national security and digitalization means that one cannot talk about national security without taking into account the degree of digitalization of the country. The problems of digitalization of Ukraine has been researched by many authors. However, it takes on special significance now that national security is becoming especially important for the country. The purpose of the study is to estimate the state of digital development of Ukraine and the cyber threats that the country has experienced and formulate basic recommendations for the further digital development of Ukraine. The author examines the issue of digitalization from the point of view of strengthening Ukraine’s position on the world stage, and those dangerous moments of digitalization that may appear in the case of military aggression. The author analyzes various indicators of digitalization as well as the state’s contribution to the development of information and communication technologies. In particular, Ukraine improved its position according to the generalized indicator of the level of development of information and communication technologies NRI from 71st place in 2015 to 50th place in 2022. Calculations showed that in recent years the state did not allocate enough budget funds to the field of information and communication technologies. A different situation is observed for the private sector in 2019–2021 – the share of capital investments from internal sources of enterprises and organizations in the “Information and Telecommunications” section exceeds the average level of capital investments disbursed from such sources in the whole economy. The downside of digitalization is the increase in cyber attacks with the spread of information and communication technologies. The work examines those examples of cyber attacks that Ukraine has experienced since the beginning of Russian aggression. In the context of hostilities, Ukraine needs to increase the level of cyber protection, because the country is no t among the top ten countries in the world with the highest GCI score.