Akash Sama­roo

The cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty arm of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is warn­ing the coun­try of a sharp in­crease in ma­li­cious cy­ber ac­tiv­i­ty over the past two months and po­lice are urg­ing those af­fect­ed to come for­ward with re­ports of these in­ci­dents.

A day af­ter Massy Stores con­firmed that it was the tar­get of a cy­ber­at­tack, the Min­istry, through its Trinidad and To­ba­go Cy­ber Se­cu­ri­ty In­ci­dent Re­sponse Team (TT-CSIRT), urged all en­ti­ties to adopt a height­ened state of aware­ness.

Al­though the unit did not iden­ti­fy the num­ber of cas­es that prompt­ed the Min­istry’s state­ment, it said that those be­ing tar­get­ed in­clude lo­cal and re­gion­al en­ti­ties.

It not­ed that the top threats to T&T were Ran­somware, So­cial En­gi­neer­ing (Phish­ing) and Ma­li­cious In­sid­ers.

It al­so warned that the most promi­nent vec­tors used against lo­cal en­ti­ties were the ex­ploita­tion of sys­tem vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties (par­tic­u­lar­ly out­dat­ed fire­wall ap­pli­ances and email sys­tems), Phish­ing emails with in­fect­ed at­tach­ments or links and com­pro­mised user cre­den­tials.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­kets As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go Ra­jiv Diptee said Massy Stores’ in­fil­tra­tion was not an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent.

“We’ve seen a spike in ac­tiv­i­ty in these kinds of in­ci­dents over the last two years and these in­ci­dents go un­re­port­ed,” said Diptee.

How­ev­er, the Cy­ber and So­cial Me­dia Unit (CSMU) of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) told Guardian Me­dia that peo­ple aren’t re­port­ing these in­ci­dents and there­fore there is lit­tle they can do.

“As of to­day, no re­ports have of­fi­cial­ly come to the Cy­ber and So­cial Me­dia Unit. I have been in con­tact with TT-CSIRT and they have al­so in­formed me that rel­a­tive to these re­cent items on so­cial me­dia and what’s in the news of­fi­cial­ly have not come to the Min­istry,” said CSMU Head In­spec­tor Daniel Her­nan­dez.

In­spec­tor Her­nan­dez said busi­ness­es are re­luc­tant to make a re­port be­cause it may dis­cour­age com­merce.

“We know there is an is­sue that comes up called rep­u­ta­tion­al risk and busi­ness­es are con­cerned with bring­ing their in­for­ma­tion to the Po­lice but if you don’t come then you run the risk of not on­ly you be­com­ing a vic­tim but oth­er peo­ple in your sphere, the re­port gives us a greater pic­ture as to what is hap­pen­ing in the cy­ber land­scape and that will give us the abil­i­ty to in­form the pub­lic as to what is re­al­ly hap­pen­ing.”

He added that the TTPS can­not in­ter­vene or in­ves­ti­gate un­less the vic­tim comes for­ward.

“That can­not hap­pen, as a po­lice es­tab­lish­ment that re­port has to be made, we have to have a vic­tim, so I can­not go on­to some­one’s premis­es or ac­cess their pri­vate in­for­ma­tion, one of the most im­por­tant things we trea­sure is the pri­vate in­for­ma­tion of cit­i­zens and I don’t have the au­thor­i­ty to just walk in­to Massy and say I want to in­ves­ti­gate.”

In­spec­tor Her­nan­dez said peo­ple are un­der­util­is­ing the unit as they have re­ceived no re­ports of cy­ber­at­tacks so far this year.

And while he said his unit is ready and does have the ca­pac­i­ty to get peo­ple jus­tice, there are still no cy­ber­crime laws in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“I want that to be clear, there is no cy­ber­crime law, yes a Bill came for­ward, we know that Bill has lapsed but there is work be­ing done to get cer­tain ad­just­ments to the Com­put­er Mis­use Act and that should open up some doors and give us some teeth.”

Dig­i­tal An­thro­pol­o­gist Daren Dho­ray said that is a big prob­lem in this in­creas­ing­ly dig­i­tal world.

Dho­ray ad­mit­ted that while cy­ber threats are a world­wide is­sue, the fre­quen­cy of in­ci­dents in this coun­try is con­cern­ing.

“I don’t think we would have seen this type of ac­tiv­i­ty in such a short space of time, but the fact of the mat­ter is, they have our at­ten­tion, the ques­tion is what is our next move.”

Dho­ray said this week’s in­ci­dents should be a re­minder to peo­ple that they must now se­cure their da­ta like they do with their lives and their pos­ses­sions.

“En­sure you have an up­dat­ed an­ti-virus soft­ware, if you have re­al­ly im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion on your com­put­er, con­sid­er pay­ing for the paid ver­sion of those pack­ages, stop us­ing weak pass­words, set up two-fac­tor au­then­ti­ca­tion and be re­al­ly dili­gent with emails that you re­ceive from un­known sources.”

To­day all Su­per­Pharm stores will be clos­ing at 10 pm to fa­cil­i­tate an up­grade to their In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy sys­tems. Dho­ray said that is ex­act­ly what com­pa­nies should be do­ing right now.

“Com­pa­nies re­al­ly need to pay at­ten­tion, they need to en­sure they have tried and test­ed back­up fa­cil­i­ties and lis­ten to the pro­fes­sion­als they may sound para­noid but now is not the time to ig­nore them.”

Dho­ray said while busi­ness­es may not want to take the time off nec­es­sary to im­prove their sys­tems, a cy­ber­at­tack may cost them more in the long run.

“So, cus­tomers should pre­pare for an in­con­ve­nience in the com­ing weeks as com­pa­nies pre­pare for what could be the in­evitable.”

Mean­while, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (TTCIC) said it is sure that many oth­er at­tacks were not brought to the gen­er­al pub­lic.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Ian De Souza said, “The un­for­tu­nate is­sue is that cy­ber­crime, like oth­er crime, is go­ing to be a part of our dai­ly lives, what be­comes im­por­tant there­fore is what we do to pro­tect our­selves. There is a log of in­for­ma­tion and a lot of tech­nol­o­gy al­so to help coun­ter­act the prob­lem.”

Massy Stores re­leased a state­ment yes­ter­day say­ing that its West­moor­ings, Mar­aval, Alyce Glen, St Au­gus­tine, El Do­ra­do, Ch­agua­nas and Brent­wood branch­es were re­opened for busi­ness as it con­tin­ues “to work as­sid­u­ous­ly to get the rest of our lo­ca­tions back up and run­ning.”

At 5 pm yes­ter­day Massy Stores added that its curb­side pick­up re­mains af­fect­ed with a fur­ther up­date ex­pect­ed to­day.