{"id":75673,"date":"2015-05-06T08:41:51","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T13:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ict-pulse.com\/?p=75673"},"modified":"2017-04-07T20:11:09","modified_gmt":"2017-04-08T01:11:09","slug":"snapshot-cybersecurity-caribbean-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ict-pulse.com\/2015\/05\/snapshot-cybersecurity-caribbean-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Snapshot: cybersecurity in the Caribbean 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

A summary of key findings of a recent cybersecurity survey conducted in the Americas.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last week, news stories began to emerge that the Islamist extremist group, ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) had hacked the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ government website:<\/p>\n

Visitors to the website, , www.gov.vc,\u00a0are greeted by the message \u201cHacked by Moroccanwolf \u2013 Islamic State\u201d \u00a0– accompanied by a photo of a man firing a machine gun from the back of a pick-up\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

(Source: St. Lucia News Online<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For a small and idyllic multi-island state in the Caribbean, with a population of just over 100,000, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, arguably, may be as far away from ISIS as one can get. However, regardless of whether ISIS indeed is responsible for defacing that country\u2019s government website, the fact remains that breach occurred and the website was compromised.<\/p>\n

Breaches of government websites, along with a broad range of other network security threats are increasing across the Caribbean, and across all key segments of the society. In Jamaica in late 2014, over 10 government websites were hacked, and a study conducted earlier in the year revealed that \u201cat least 43 government entities are at the risk of being hijacked by cyber criminals because those sites lack the requisite security features<\/em>\u201d (Source: The Gleaner<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In January 2015, the Organisation of American States (OAS) in collaboration with Trend Micro, a well-known security software firm, conducted a survey among OAS member states on \u201ccybersecurity, attacks, preparedness and critical infrastructure<\/em>\u201d (Source: OAS and Trend Micro<\/a>). The survey was targeted at the heads of security and\/or CIOs of the major critical infrastructures in all countries in the Americas. Responses were received from 575 entities in 26 countries. The Caribbean\/CARICOM countries that participated in the exercise were: Barbados; Belize; Dominica, Dominican Republic; Grenada; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; and Suriname. Some of the more telling results from the survey are outlined below:<\/p>\n