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Caribbean Cyber Security Awareness Month: “Be Aware, Be Proactive”

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Submitted by James Bynoe (Caribbean Cyber Security Center)
Stay safe Onnline
Stay safe on the Internet

October is Global Cyber Security Awareness Month and it remains critically important to engage all Barbados public and private sector stakeholders – especially the general public – to becoming more aware of the many internet risks, threats and vulnerabilities facing us daily at home, school and work.  Based on regional cyber security incidents within the last 18 months “EVERYONE” in Barbados has a role to play in promoting effective cyber security as cyber criminals and predators have targeted Barbados and the overall Caribbean region. Constantly evolving cyber threats also require the engagement of all Barbadians in following international cyber security best practices and standards — from government and law enforcement to the private sector and most importantly, the public.

Cyberspace is woven into the fabric of our daily lives and the world is more interconnected today than ever before. We enjoy the benefits and convenience that cyberspace provides as we shop from home online, bank using our smart phones, and interact with friends from around the Caribbean and world. However while the benefits of the internet outweigh the negatives, the negatives from cybercrime and online sex predators must be addressed.  To address the internet negatives the Caribbean Cyber Security Center is   committed to raising cyber security awareness in Barbados and to working across all levels of government, the private sector, and internationally to protect against network compromises, and child internet exploitation.

Additionally we have developed a regionally focused Child Online Protection Program (COP) based out of Barbados called “THINK, CLICK, SURF” (www.thinkclicksurf.com).

We believe that our children are our most valuable assets and have a human right to survive, develop and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias, favouritism, or exploitation via the internet. This interpretation is consistent with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which pledges the fundamental rights of every child.

Additionally we believe that Caribbean initiatives like “One Laptop Per Child” which aim to help expand the minds of our kids through technology must be done in a socially responsible manner,  with emphasis on providing the “Do’s and Don’ts” of the Internet to both teachers and students. In September we officially launched our COP program in Curacao and Jamaica, with more to come in the months ahead.

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13 responses to “Caribbean Cyber Security Awareness Month: “Be Aware, Be Proactive””

  1. Edward Snowden! Avatar
    Edward Snowden!

    Well well well.
    this was bound to happen sooner or later. Let me blow up some spots as they say here in the ghetto!
    Snr. Executive of a locally run, owned and operated financial transaction clearing house for Carifs transactions takes (HER) yes, her laptop to some pip-squeak to be fixed. The “technician” copies all her data and woo-la! Your financials are now compromised! Why did I say (HER) so pointedly? Because they are too many women in prominent positions who have gotten there by means which are only describable as foul! They cant work together towards a common goal and hence they are part of the destruction of this nation with their “wet-seat” contests!

    SurePay keeps loosing peoples transactions and worst yet, cant submit the transactions you make to them in real-time, so that 24 ~48 hr lag is enough to siphon off some funds if you know what you are doing! But we allow the disgusting Trinidadian owned and operated company who believes that their presence in Barbados “Illuminates” the local IT landscape to keep operating this system with impunity! By the way. There’s NO governance regarding these types of financial systems here in BIM because they aren’t covered under our legislation!
    The pompous fools who like to try to sound important who are responsible for seeing that these systems are compliant will tout their Masters degrees or their two masters degrees which they have earned or cheated their way through, and will say the following: ” The legislation doesn’t expressly speak to that!” So you will get an excuse from stupid Barbadians every time you try to approach them with meaningful conversation about Cyber Security.
    Only today, just a few days on the heels of this article being written we have news of an ATM scam. And the fattest joke is that the police( yes those clowns) are investigating this scam! Well you tell me this. Is the RBPF anywhere near understanding that Cyber-crime is not the act of someone being assaulted with a keyboard or a computer power cord? Because I’d really like to know what competencies exists in the RBPF to investigate these matters. Oh, yes, I know. They watch CSi and other shows which praise and glorify policing! But Ill tell you this, they certainly like to play with technology and when you ask them questions related to the good governance of its use, you hear the following: ‘That is police business!” So all of a sudden, they are more important than we are but 89% of them probably cant muster 3 CxC subjects at General Proficiency level. So go figure how they are going to solve these cases accurately. Give a fool power and what will he/she do? FOOLISHNES!
    Now, does Barbados have a C-SIRT (CIRT) in which matters of Cyber-crime and other such related matters are fed into for analysis and action? Where is it again? We are way too reactive because we like the Status-Quo. We cant seem to let go of that foolishness which places well heeled idiots in positions where they shouldn’t be. And the Ministry of Foreign Affairs( getting to them soon)and Foreign Trade hope to invite and attract investment here with this sub-standard, mediocre infrastructure and lack of governance. This is a joke at its height! But those ed-u-ma-cats will soon come to this forum to tell us we are OK, and that I am a fool who doesn’t know what I speak about! Well, let me play Edward Snowden for a minute. The Min of Foreign Affairs and the Gov of Barbados gets some “ching-young-choung” computers from our friends within the Peoples Republic of China! You know, we Bajan’s too love a “freeness” We then proceed to deploy these assets to the desk’s of Ministers of government, Perm Sec’s and other top level officials. Hmmmm? I wonder whose ides this was. So, after this, the Min of Foreign Affairs gets hacked. Actually, on to them now, these guys had a really sleek phone system deployed at all the missions and which was hosted in Barbados as its hub and was coupled to a even sleeker Video Conferencing system. It saved closed to a million dollars in its two years of operation by cutting travel and long distance bills. But some folks disliked that. So they infuriated the guy who spear-headed the project, and he walked away from the ministry leaving a misfit,baboon like, BLP-loving piss-bet to run the show. All this guy likes to do is run woman, play cricket and fly about the place on gov funds. But hes a political pimp who shouldn’t be there in this current administration.The place is now in shambles technically, but the minister is not putting down her foot neither is the PS. Tell you this though. When the white woman was the PS there, he was held well in line. just goes to show we cant get that Colonialistic mentality out of our heads. Massa crack whip, Niggah jump!
    Government has been hacked so many times it is now commonplace practice to unplug the server and leave it until the problem can be fixed. That’s our remedy. Government has no real critical thinkers and strategists. The Ministry of the Civil Service is apparently where the Chief E-Government officer sits. hes a stones throw away from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so I believe that idiotic influence is rubbing of on him. Its probably no coincidence that the too fools which I am referring to even drive the same type of car. Hmm. Must have been a kickback from some project. And don’t talk about that defunct department which government operates called Data Processing Department at all. They are 100% USELESS! INCOMPETENT! Cant do a thing to advise government but they are apparently trying to run a system close to SurePay called EZPay. Something they claim is being set up to pay your Land tax. Gimme a break! The only person that I would pay with that system is Ms.Myrie cause she would hear” The transaction is in the queue!” That is equivalent to “The Chqueue is in the mail!”
    Look people, we are lagging. We aren’t serious! I once heard a lecturer at a prominent business institution here say,” if you want to swear in Barbados using alternative expletives, the words to use are the C-word, R-word, & the P-word. Compliance, Regulatory, and Policy. Whats interesting is the person went on to say that there are two words which start with P and end with Y which can be used in Barbados to swear. PolicY and ProductivitY. I thought that it was rather funny, but in retrospect, I’m now in full agreement with this individual. Thank you for the insight! You know who you are if you read this column.
    Barbadians can keep complaining bout politics, politicians and not policies and regulatory frameworks and real matters which really affect our standing in the non-Barbadian world.
    You know when we will realize that we face a significant Cyber Security deficit, When we get disconnected on a national level from Facebook!
    I just getting a bellyful at these morons

  2. David Avatar
    David

    Wouldn’t the laptop have been procured from a recognized vendor with requisite maintenance and confidentiality contract in place?

    On 8 October 2013 00:20, Barbados Underground

  3. JUST ASKING Avatar
    JUST ASKING

    Snowden you are a boss. Welcome to you
    How things though? Are you going back to the states anytime soon. You are bold , You dont know THE Americans looking for you though ?

  4. David Avatar
    David

    Say what you want Barbados is ranked #1 in ICT in the Americas whatever that means.

  5. Just Commenting Avatar
    Just Commenting

    @ Snowden(LOL)
    Dear writer. in your commentary you mentioned a number of troubling but interesting matter which may of may not be accurately depicted in your discourse. You are right about the lack of controls which are placed on the various entities and how they are allowed to operate in Barbados. That is a problem that we have, have had and probably will continue to have for sometime to come as we don’t like to implement change.
    While the article was focused on CyberSecurity, it does play into the issues being faced currently with the Financial sector and what appears to be a significant problem with the handling of sensitive information. Your general discourse seems to cover a wide gamut of Private sector and public sector short-comings which suggests a culture element buried somewhere deep within the core problem.
    Barbados ranking high on an ICT scale means little if the criteria that were used in the analysis aren’t widely known. I am fairly certain that as you so rightly said, regulatory, compliance and policy mechanisms which seem to be missing from our environment,probably weren’t used or highly weighted in the analysis. But what I saw was a smiling Chief Telecoms officer up front in a local paper basking in the praise being heaped on the island as if it was as a result of his initiatives that the island was so highly regarded.
    That type of publicity will not go far however because companies who value their information and the sanctity of it still wont come here to do business as their own investigations will reveal that our physical infrastructure and governance models are lacking if not non-existent.
    To add to these apparent issues, Barbadians on the 8th of October seemed to have experienced an island wide data black out if they were patrons of the LIME service from approximately 7am on to about 11am. While the problem hasn’t yet been publicly identified and reported, the fear can be that these incidents that may seem un-related may point to entities operating physically from within our shores and remotely from offshore probing our defenses and making the necessary chinks in our armour before a wide-scale attack is launched. Your comment about Facebook was troubling as we were cut off from that service when the outage occurred. Do you know of something that you should make us ware of? If so, speak up and speak across the forums.
    I believe that this article should be made available to more Barbadians on the main-stream media so that they can be aware of the potential threat which they face and start to act accordingly. Us few writing here is god as it indicate that people with some knowledge of the inner happenings of this world are wiling to enlighten us, but we need it to “go Viral” as do some incidents which have less national impact.
    The ability to collect and use information is certainly the way forward. Time for Barbados to act decisively.

  6. David Avatar
    David

    The comment about hight on ICT was posted tongue in cheek. A read of the article suggest this is measured based on penetration.

  7. Just Commenting Avatar
    Just Commenting

    @ David.
    Well I guess if it based on penetration, Barbados can score top points when you stop to realize that we have a fairly flat topography which makes the building out of the appropriate infrastructure for the delivery of services significantly easier than some of our Caribbean neighbors who are more mountainous or hilly. If that is indeed the criteria, its nothing to pat ourselves on the back about because we would have inherited the topography, not created it.
    That is truly sad if we are indeed feeling proud about something that we didn’t influence or have responsibility for..

  8. David Avatar
    David

    @Just Cmmenting

    What should be key measurements we should use to determine where we are and where we need to be in the ICT world.

  9. Just Commenting Avatar
    Just Commenting

    @ David.
    Its interesting that you should ask. They are many KPI’s that can be used to he;p us determine where we are. Some of them are sub-sets of wider processes, or methodologies but we could extract these few to get started:

    Cost of service delivery: What does it cost to deliver the various services to the client. Is that cost manageable and well contained or does it have the potential to skyrocket based on a lack or regulations thereby forcing us out of a competitive stance.

    Critical-time outage: Do we have a means of determining how much time we can afford to be with out those services before profitability is lost? Are there mechanisms for reducing the critical time?

    Richness of services Offered: How complete and robust is our service portfolio? Do we have those services considered standard for a developing country and what is the cost to the customer? Case in point. LIME offers a basic 2Mb DSL package. But when one examines Broadband services in the Western world, the minimum bandwidth offered in 2013 averages 10Mb. Playing beneath the bar will not attract international movement to our shores as the cost of doing business is seen to be higher for data and other telecom services which are now seen as business critical services.

    Number of Planned New Services: What new services are developed or being developed following a strategic review?

    Number of Unplanned New Services: What new services are planned or implemented which are not as a result of a strategic review?

    Number of Strategic Initiatives: How many strategic initiatives are launched from the Service Portfolio Management process.

    Adherence to Budgeting Process
    Post Implementation Review
    Cost-/ Benefit Estimation
    Proposals for Cost Optimization

    Before any of this is done, we would need a central IT body which is given a mandate and is well managed and staffed with the requisite professionals. That body would answer to a visionary whose only goal is moving the country from one point to another and is agnostic to the political directorate.

  10. David Avatar
    David

    @Just Commenting

    Thanks, the kpis you listed make one go hmmm.

  11. islandgal246 Avatar
    islandgal246

    The recent ATM scam that has been uncovered should alert the banking community that their surveillance should be top priority.

  12. James Bynoe Avatar
    James Bynoe

    “We Are Under Attack … And Must React Proactively, Business Leaders and ICT Managers Must Get This”

    The recent ATM scam noting where the cyber criminals can from (eastern Europe) should serve as a wake-up call that Barbados, and the region as a whole has been identified as a “soft target” for global cyber criminal networks,due to weak security controls in place across the region.

    It is imperative that all Barbados businesses and government conduct an ICT risk assessment to identify all internal and external (internet facing) weaknesses and vulnerability, and fix them (noting that often the fixes are free).

    The cost to having an independent ICT Risk Assessment has been proven to be “FAR” less that the impact of a cyber breach or attack. Its just the smart thing to do for all.

    We are here to help and all are welcome to contact me at the Caribbean Cyber Security Center for guidance (telephone: 1-246-236-8818 or 1-246-232-9009 email: james.bynoe@caribbeancsc.com).

  13. Mary Avatar
    Mary

    I agree that we should be more aware of cyber-fraud but Snowden seems to have a personal vendetta against women and two other individuals in a Government Office. Are these individuals a threat to your survival?

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