ICT Pulse: Niel, it has been two years since our last Expert Insights Series, give us a quick recap of what have been the most prevalent incidents in Barbados and/or in the Caribbean region since 2014?
Niel Harper: Over the last 2 years, various government web sites in Barbados have been compromised and defaced by hackers. Websites included the Barbados Government Information Service (BGIS), Barbados Stock Exchange (BSE), Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA), Royal Barbados Police Force, and the Barbados Supreme Court, to name a few. Private websites such as the Barbados Advocate were hacked as well. There are still no data protection laws in the country, so due to absence of mandatory breach notifications, the few reported incidents are only the tip of the iceberg.
The prevalence of ATM skimming attacks have also increased. However, because the marketplace is dominated by mostly Canadian banks, Sarbanes-Oxley regulatory requirements have led to stronger controls, and many of the skimming attacks have resulted in arrests.
In the wider Caribbean, there have been similar trends of government websites being compromised. A number of organizations in St. Vincent, Grenada, St. Kitts & Nevis and other countries have been subject to malicious online attacks. One of the major commonalities across the region is that organizations with limited resources and untrained personnel have been the targets of successful attacks. This is a key reason why capacity building is critical to improving the region’s overall cyber response capabilities.
ICTP: How has the threat landscape changed over the past two years? Are there any particular areas of concern that you have for Caribbean organizations?
NH: The smartphone footprint continues to grow and with it the attack surface of mobile devices. That being said, many device manufacturers are focusing their efforts on enhanced security as a product differentiator. Still, end user education is necessary as an additional layer of protection against malicious threats.
Given the increased hardening of operating systems and applications, attackers are focusing on areas lower down the ‘stack’ such as BIOS, firmware, and graphics chipsets. Controls such as boot security, trusted execution, and active memory protecting are making these attacks more difficult, but I expect these types of threat vectors to increase.
Newer technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things), M2M (machine-to-machine) communication, Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), and Software Defined Networks (SDN) are growing in terms of their deployment base. But this also introduces significant challenges in terms of security: single points of failure, open source software, and complexity. The fact that commonly used items such as televisions, refrigerators, and even automobiles, are now accessible through the Internet has vastly changed the threat landscape, and should force manufacturers and end users alike to focus more on cybersecurity.
The explosion of cloud computing, the increasing popularity of crypto-currencies, and the emergence of mobile payments (e.g. Apple Pay, Google Wallet, etc.) are also areas for concern with regard to an expanding threat surface.
All of these areas are of particular concerns for Caribbean organizations, especially those who are seeking to be on the cutting edge […]
The entire interview can be found on the ICT Pulse website at: http://bit.ly/1T9iMQv
Niel Harper 