Commentary: Cyber security: Can Caribbean governments defend their borders alone?

.By Deon Olton

The dangers of cyber threats in the Caribbean continue to evolve and spike at a rate never seen before. As the telecoms providers in the Caribbean seek opportunities to increase their revenues through increased internet penetration across the region risks mushrooms. The risks are further compounded as societies transcend geographical and physical borders, and real-time communication and business transactions are rapidly becoming an everyday staple. However, utilizing the same networks and links that bind us globally as we communicate and do business are now the means through which cyber-attacks are being perpetrated Cyber threats and attacks from the present day digital pirates are able to strike from virtually anywhere in the world, causing catastrophic social and economic harm to countries that are oceans away.

Caribbean governments cannot contain these cyber threats singlehandedly for several reasons. There is a need for capacity building and overall public sector awareness, most governments do not have a centralized focus on risk and contingency planning and hence issues associated with cyber security are not prioritized, and overall there is no security program plan to increase network visibility and control.

In a recent article published in the St Maarten Daily Herald, Martin Van Nes, an in-depth specialist in combatting cybercrime in the entire Dutch Caribbean, said cybercrime deserves more attention.

“There is insufficient awareness about cybercrime among residents, within the business community, and in government. There is an increased threat of cyber-attacks and cyber-security should be stepped up,” he said.

Mr Van Nes couldn’t be more right, with thousands of new malware variants being released every month, the discovery of new security holes in our day to day applications, thousands of hackers and hacktivist, fraudsters and spammers, and the advanced persistent and targeted attacks, our government administrators are unable to defend the integrity, availability, confidentiality and sovereignty of Caribbean data and information technology resources without help.

Public and private sector in-house IT teams need beefed-up support, greater investments in the latest technology and access to local and international resources that defend systems and data from digital pirates. To think all is safe when there is no clearly defined budget or procedures to deal with defending data and prevent security breaches is merely leaving the doors and windows opened to our government data and infrastructure.

Without a dedicated and planned approach, we certainly can predict that the national security, public safety and economic development of our Caribbean governments will be compromised in a time when most islands are facing hard economic times. The decision to wait and see what happens is not an option. The Panama Papers, the $150 million cyber robbery from a Jamaican bank, reports of Isis hijacking regional websites, customers local and regional being hit with ransomware attacks are all indicators that we need to adopt a different approach.

It is clear that the Caribbean governments are easy targets for several reasons but there is hope. Governments need to implement a contingency plan that looks at the impact of cyber breaches on national infrastructure. This plan should leverage a cadre of IT security expertise and skill that will take a 360-degree look at the issue of cyber security. Additionally, this plan should be focused on increasing network visibility and management so that potential attacks can be identified and quarantined early.