Regional Governments have been told to heighten online security measures due to increasing attacks by cyber-criminals.
According to the Chief Executive Officer for the Caribbean Cyber Security Centre, James Bynoe, attacks by cyber-criminals will be a major problem for the region due to the increasing skill of hackers and the growing resources available to use in committing cyber-crimes.
He said the region has made it on the radar of international criminal cyber networks, with two countries being attacked recently.
“We have seen attacks within the last two weeks in Barbados, in the Cayman Islands and this is something that we should expect to continue. This is not an issue that can be solved by one organization or one Government. We just have to get smart and pull together to ensure that Caribbean ICT resources are protected. There is no way to combat this and it’s a very, very pressing and clear and present danger to us.”
He said islands in the region are exposed because of their size and suggested that governments pool resources to facilitate a stronger defence against cyber-attacks. “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, we can take a look at what’s happening internationally and modify it across the region. Because our islands are so small it does not take much for a hacker or someone trying to do something malicious to scan our entire country. It does not take three years to study somebody’s things, we have very intelligent people all across the region that understand this, we just need to start looking at everything that we do,” Bynoe said.
