Businesses warned to prepare for attacks

By Marlon Madden

Technology industry professionals have warned companies to take cyber security more seriously.

In fact, pointing out that cyber attacks were increasing in type and frequency, Managing Director of Precision Cybertechnologies & Digital Solutions Ltd Ronald Walcott cautioned that having the mere minimum online protection was not good enough.

At the same time, Stephen Riccio, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) Solutions Engineer with Ditto, warned that micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) were most at risk of losing valuable data.

They were addressing a special PromoTech Inc corporate event, PromoTech Evolve, at Deia Beach Restaurant and Beach Club in Christ Church held recently.

During the event, officials announced the merger of PromoTech and the Trinidad-based ZanTech,
an affiliate of Amalgamated Security Services Ltd (ASSL), while several partners showcased their products and services.

Walcott pointed out that while the COVID-19 pandemic had accelerated the digital transformation in the region, the number of attacks and types of attacks has also increased.

“What has been happening in recent times is that there has been a significant explosion in cybercrime, primarily because it is financially rewarding,” said Walcott.

He said oftentimes when cyber criminals actually carry out an attack it means they have had access to the system “months before”.

“They know exactly how your system looks, where your backups are, how it is you will try to respond and where all your weak points are. It is very organised in the way that they do this. What we do is try to take that stress away from you and give you peace of mind,” he said, as he outlined the offerings of his company.

Pointing to global studies which showed that cyber risks were among the major concerns of business leaders, Walcott said “It is not whether or not you will be attacked or have a cyber event, the question is when.”

Stressing that cyber threats have been “evolving”, Walcott added “When you look at what has been happening whether locally, regionally and internationally, every day we get the cyber reports and last year . . . there were more than 500,000 attempted attacks in this region.

“The way in which it works, it’s something people don’t think about because people think about cyber crime as activism or people are being mischievous. But the fact is that these cyber criminals use . . . a very organised way in which they go about doing their cyber attacks,” said Walcott.

“A lot of times when we talk to clients they say ‘we have end point detection’ or ‘I have firewalls’ or something like that. But the truth is, that is insufficient in this new modern era when it comes to cyber crime. That is very inefficient. We think about cyber prevention in terms of depth. You have to have layers within what you do,” he said.

Noting that business leaders were thinking of cyber security as “an IT thing”, Walcott said that was a part of the challenge why they often failed to put the necessary security measures in place.

“That is still part of the challenge that we are faced with. In fact, cyber security should be considered as part of business. It is a business enabler and should be part of your consideration when you think about what you do. We need to understand the economic drivers,” he said.

Insisting that prevention was better than cure, Walcott announced that Precision Cybertechnologies was in the process of building the region’s first full-scaled security operation centre (SOC).

“It is called the Caribbean Security Operation Centre and at this SOC, we will be able to provide 24/7 monitoring for all companies internationally, but our focus is going to be in the Caribbean,” he said.

“At this SOC we are going to be doing all sorts of artificial intelligence, black web monitoring, autonomous response and more. We are very excited about this and very pleased to introduce this level of technology and competence in the region. This is going to be up and running in the coming months. We are well advanced in this and you will be hearing more about this SOC in due course,” he added.

Riccio meanwhile warned that SMEs should pay close attention to safeguarding their data by having them backed up.

“You are at risk of losing your data if you are not backing it up. Today’s reality is that small and medium-sized businesses are under attack and are four times more likely to be exposed to a malware or ransomware attack than enterprise businesses,” he said.

Pointing to international data that showed that cyber attacks have been on the increase, he also warned that downtime costs were having a deleterious effect on companies.

“In 2018, the average cost was a little over $50,000 and in two years since it has grown to over $250,000. Every hour you are down and do not have access to your files you are losing money,” he said.

 marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb