Cybersecurity Performance of Shanghai Cooperation Organization Countries and Türkiye Using the Hybrid MEREC-MAUT Approach

Besides the benefits, digitalization has brought certain responsibilities and risks into everyday life. Cyberattacks, which are hard to predict, can cause serious harm to individuals, institutions, and countries. As a result, raising awareness about cybersecurity and assessing cybersecurity performance have become crucial. These threats, which have grown from regional to global issues, demand an analysis of the cybersecurity policies of international organizations and the capabilities of member states. This study aims to address a gap in regional cybersecurity evaluations by examining Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states alongside Türkiye, considering its strategic role as a dialogue partner. For this purpose, it introduces a novel hybrid MEREC–MAUT framework to offer a structured comparative assessment. The 2024 Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) data were analyzed using a hybrid approach that combines MEREC (Method based on the Removal Effects of Criteria) and MAUT (Multi-Attribute Utility Theory). MEREC was selected for objective weighting based on criteria removal effects, while MAUT offers flexible utility-based ranking, providing a robust analytical approach over traditional multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods. The analysis indicated that 'technical measures' ranked as the top criterion, followed by capacity-development and organizational measures. Türkiye, India, and Pakistan emerged as the top-performing countries, whereas Tajikistan and Belarus exhibited the lowest performance by a significant margin. The empirical results highlight the critical importance of regional collaboration within the SCO and reveal that prioritizing technical measures is essential for boosting cybersecurity performance. Thus providing policy-makers with a strategic improvement roadmap for targeted infrastructure updates in underperforming nations.