With cyber-attacks rising all across the Caribbean, Andre Thomas, Chief Executive Officer of the CICCD- Caribbean Israel Centre For Cyber Defense, has advised the local authorities in Barbados and the region responsible for law enforcement and better legislation, to counter this issue.
He revealed yesterday that, “They’ve been major hacks recently in the last six weeks. There was a major hack in St. Maarten, another one in Guyana…. We’re aware of hacks taking place all over the region. And they’re mostly underreported.”
However, Andre Thomas did not classify which entities came under this cyber-attack, but he did noted that this region is viewed as an easy target by cyber-criminals due to the inadequate cyber-security infrastructure.
While he expressed concern over the unwillingness to report such cyber-incidents, the CICCD official claimed that unsatisfactory training and legislative provisions were some of the reasons for the hindrances.
He added saying, “[Hacks] are underreported because our law enforcement agencies, though very passionate and very willing to make a difference in this area, still have areas of development in terms of being able to deal with cybercrime.
Most of the jurisdictions do not have cybercrime legislation. Most of the police departments do not have forensic cyber detection capacity. There’s so much that has to be done.”
He promised and guaranteed the organization’s support to aid regional countered, especially since the General Data Protection Regulation that was introduced by the European Union will go into effect by the 25th of May.
Under this regulation, any organization or company will be held legally responsible if personal information that belongs to a business or an EU citizen gets stolen via a cyber-attack. Included in the specifications is a financial penalty which means that the entity would have to forfeit four percent of its inclusive turnover or be fined to a maximum of 20 million Euros.
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