Submitted by James Bynoe, BCF Senior Vice President for Cyber Security

As a Barbadian and Cyber Security executive the protection of the Caribbean’s Public and Private Information and Communication Infrastructures is one of the most serious economic and security challenges facing Barbados and our region.

Our ability to effectively ensure the Confidentiality, Availability and Integrity (CIA) of regional informational technology assets has significant economic and security implications for both the public and private sectors.

More than ever before a comprehensive regional Caribbean centric approach to Cyber Security is needed which takes into consideration the many local technical, management, operational, and cultural nuances of Caribbean nations.  It is also important that we as a region start to view ourselves as a “single cyberspace entity” in order to leverage best of breed Caribbean centric cyber security best practices and lessons learned.

Here are a few facts which emphasize the need for ICT professional in the private and public sector to “act”.

• Over 60% of all US Companies have been compromised – Source: US Department of Justice

• 165% growth in new malicious code and growing – Source: Symantec

• Over a 500% increase in the number of malware attacks that use hostile code to infiltrate or damage a computer systems – equal to the combined total for the five years prior – Source: McAfee

• 90% of all compromises can be stopped through proper configuration and patch management – Source: Gartner

There is also an opportunity for Barbados to be an ideal lead nation to serve as a centralized regional hub for providing a wide range of Cyber security technical, management, operational support services.

The recently reported hacking of Barbados government websites should be viewed as a “WAKE-UP” call to Barbados government and private sector ICT professional to get there houses in order.

The credibility that an organization looses as the result of a system compromise especially when  personal or financial information is involved takes years to recover from.