Conventional and nuclear weapons pose continuing threats but the real arms race now on is in cyberspace, a new cyber defense report said.

The report by Brussels think tank Security and Defense Agenda received input from Intel Corp. subsidiary McAfee technology security company and leading global security experts.

The findings indicated that smaller states Finland, Israel and Sweden surged ahead of larger countries in readiness for cybersecurity and fighting cyber warfare.

Israel's role in cyber warfare in the Middle East has been known, particularly in ongoing confrontation with Iran, but the emergence of Finland and Sweden as cyberspace-savvy operators in the technology industry wasn't widely expected.

The report coincided with other security intelligence posts on the Web that hostile cyber activity emanating from the Middle East, Asia, Russia and former Soviet republics was viewed in the West as a growing problem.

"Cyber-security: The Vexed Question of Global Rules" offered what it termed "a global snapshot" of current thinking about the cyber threats and the measures that should be taken to defend against them, and assesses the way ahead.

SDA said it interviewed leading global security experts to ensure that findings would offer usable recommendations and actions.

Its interviews with about 80 world-leading policymakers and cybersecurity experts in government, business and academia in 27 countries were supplemented with 250 anonymously surveyed world leaders in 35 countries.

It sought to identify key debate areas and trends and help governments and corporate organizations understand how their cyber defense positions compare to those of other countries and organizations.

"Until we can pool our data and equip our people and machines with intelligence, we are playing chess with only half the pieces," said McAfee's Phyllis Schneck, vice president and chief technology officer in the company's global public sector department.

The report says 57 percent of experts interviewed believe that an arms race is taking place in cyberspace.

It said 36 percent of those surveyed said cybersecurity is more important than missile defense.

Of those interviewed, 43 percent identified damage or disruption to critical infrastructure as the greatest single threat posed by cyber attacks and how they led to wide economic consequences.

Nearly half -- 45 percent -- of respondents said that cybersecurity is as important as border security.

Cyber-readiness in the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, China and Germany trailed the smaller countries.

The report ranks 23 countries, less than the 27-member EU members and fewer than the 34-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which groups industrial countries.

The report recommended more information-sharing and public awareness programs, more funds, more powers for law enforcement agencies, rewriting of global cyber treaties and "best practice-led" international security standards.

"The core problem is that the cyber criminal has greater agility, given large funding streams and no legal boundaries to sharing information, and can thus choreograph well-orchestrated attacks into systems," Schneck said.

The experts agreed that smart phones and cloud computing introduced a new set of problems. Malware targeted at Android devices jumped 76 percent from 2010-11.