St. Lucia News Online published an article on December 11, 2017, about whether the Caribbean governments can defend their cyber borders alone. Here’s a summary:
- Cyber threats in the Caribbean are constantly evolving and are spiking at an unprecedented rate especially as communication and business transactions rapidly become the norm.
- There is a need for awareness, contingency planning, and a security program plan to increase network visibility and control.
- Caribbean Government Administrators can’t defend the integrity, availability, confidentiality, and sovereignty of Caribbean data and information technology resources without aid.
- Both public and private sector in-house IT teams need greater support and investments in the latest technology and access to local and international resources that defend systems and data. Without dedicated and detailed plans, Caribbean governments will be compromised especially because they are easy to target.
- A contingency plan needs to be implemented which should leverage a cadre of IT security expertise and skill and focused on increasing network visibility and management so potential attacks can be identified and quarantined early.
- The Government of St. Maarteen has taken a proactive step to tighten up IT security. This move was necessary as it ensured controlled access to IT systems that hold national security and personal information of the country.
- Phase two will be an upcoming cybersecurity conference to improve awareness by having all stakeholders in St. Maarten present. Additionally, a draft national security action plan will be developed to be used as a guide for private and public sector organizations which will increase the level of security controls.
Source: stlucianewsonline.com
Contributed by Racquel Bailey from Jamaica. Racquel is a member of our Women in InfoSec Caribbean (WISC) initiative on Discord. WISC is a non-profit initiative supporting Caribbean women and girls to develop a career in Information Security. Learn more about WISC at wiscaribbean.org.