The Caribbean Council published an article on October 30, 2016, about the need for action to address cybersecurity in the Caribbean. Here’s a quick summary just for you.
Just over a week ago, many premium providers of global web services, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, Netflix, Visa, temporarily went offline. Experts believe it may have been the biggest DDoS attack ever mounted, because it brought down a major gateway, and was highly sophisticated in the way it sent vast amounts of data, causing Dyn servers to deny access to their clients.
Key points:
- Apart from suggesting the lack of serious safety concerns on the part of those who design and sell web-linked goods and legislation to regulate them, it has shown that it is now possible to indirectly shut down or disrupt critical on-line services.
- Trade press reports say that DDoS attacks, in general, have become so severe that more than 30% are now large enough to swamp almost any company or under-protected government.
- Some experts indicated that these exposed not only the lack of adequate protection within government portals but also the presence of outmoded IT systems and applications with the ability to compromise internal government communications.
- Several governments and companies in the Caribbean have begun to recognize the threat. It is startling that sufficient money or time is not being spent on upgrading, protecting or testing systems related to crucial infrastructure, government services, banking and financial services, private sector operations, or on securing media outlets.
- According to a joint report published earlier this year by the Center for Strategic Studies and McAfee, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has become a new frontier for cyber-attacks and crime at an approximate expense of about US$ 90 billion per year.
- The Caribbean and Latin America have a small window in which to develop integrated and robust cybersecurity networks before attackers start to seriously explore and infiltrate what is still a largely a poorly defended region.
Reference: caribbean-council.org
Contributed by: Sabrina Shim from Jamaica. Sabrina is a member of the WISC Discord group from the G5 Cyber Security Foundation Ltd. Learn more about WISC (Women in InfoSec Caribbean) at wiscaribbean.org. WISC is a non-profit initiative supporting Caribbean women and girls to develop a career in Information Security.