Expanding your business to Sweden

Gateway to the Nordic cybersecurity market

The Swedish market in numbers

The Netherlands and Sweden share a similar business culture, making it relatively easy for Dutch companies to do business in Sweden. The Swedish population is innovation savvy and digitally skilled. Stockholm has one of the fastest-growing tech startup scenes in the world, producing startups and breeding unicorns like Skype, Spotify and Klarna.

10,6 mln.

Population

1,26%

GDP growth

86%

English proficiency

97%

Internet penetration

#10

For ease of doing business (World Bank)

How Sweden ranks

1st globally

National Cybersecurity Index on the subject Network Readiness, 43rd overall (NCSI Sweden (ega.ee))

2nd of high-income countries

on innovation (WIPO 2020)

3rd globally

Digital competitiveness (IMD world digital comeptiteveness ranking)

Cybersecurity opportunities in Sweden in a snapshot

Sweden is a frontrunner in digitalisation, both in the public sector and in the core industries. However, this digital transformation comes with risks for more cyber threats, therefore requiring a proactive approach to cybersecurity. The National Cybersecurity Index demonstrates that a large proportion of companies haven’t taken the necessary countermeasures to secure their technologies. The fast digitalization thus creates a security gap that needs to be bridged in the near future.

A large digital solutions sector
The digital sector accounts for +/-20% of Sweden’s GDP, among the highest shares in the world.

Existing collaborations
Sweden and the Netherlands are both EU members and have similar laws on cybersecurity. Existing collaborations in European cybersecurity organizations, such as the ENISA and NECC provides that business collaborations are fostered.

Growing security sector
The security sector generated €150 mln. revenue in 2020 and is expected to grow at 13,7% annually (Statista)

High urgency for security solutions
80% of (medium to large size) Swedish organizations exposed to cyber incidents in 2020. (Truesec.com)

Investment-readiness
52% of Swedish security executives plan to increase investment in cybersecurity. (trade.gov)

Government expenditures
Swedish public investments in signals intelligence and the cyber domain was €510 mln. in 2018 and continues to grow, according to the Comprehensive cybersecurity action plan 2019-2022.

Leading Swedish security firms

Dutch firms in Sweden

Network partners in Sweden

Leading fields of expertise

Application security

Vulnerability assessment and analysis tools, patch management software, content filtering and monitoring software

Identity and Access Based Services

Intrusion detection systems, authentication systems, anomaly detection & prevention systems, messaging security, access management systems

Situational Awareness

Deep & Dark Web investigation services, attack trend analysis services, intrusion response services

System Recovery and Data Cleansing

Automated data cleansing tools, validation and verification tools, de-duplication software

Share attacked with ransomeware

According to a survey by Sophos, some 60% of Swedish organizations that participated were hit with ransomware attacks in 2019, and a majority paid to get their information back, mainly due to insufficient cyber insurance.

Biggest threat

45% of Swedish organisations see cloud account compromise as the biggest threat for the coming years (Statista 2020). Other perceived threats are business e-mail compromise, phishing and nation-state attacks.

Market demand

The public sector and critical infrastructure sectors (transportation, energy, and communications) account for roughly 30 per cent of the cybersecurity solutions demand.

Majority of solutions

Over half of the total market value of cybersecurity, almost SEK 6 bln., consists of consultancy services and project assignments.

Biggest consequences

51% of businesses in Sweden cited brand and reputation damage as the biggest consequence of a cyber attack – followed by data breaches and business and operational disruption.

Biggest risk

When quizzed about the biggest risks to their organisation, Swedish CSOs/ CISOs cited outdated or insufficient cybersecurity solutions and technology (49%), followed by lack of proper access controls/processes and human error and lack of security awareness