Trinidad and Tobago Needs Cyber Security Experts

• Speaker after speaker at the launch of a regional arm of a global network for collaboration in cyber security lamented the shortage of cyber security experts in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), amid a plethora of cyber-attacks. The Caribbean chapter of the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2) was launched on July 16 at the Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain.
• Devon Seale, chairing the event, said the group aimed to equip professionals with the knowledge to safeguard their data and to build resilience. "In the past two years we have been bombarded by many cyber-attacks," Seale said. "Cyber security is a shared responsibility."
• He warned that all the current protection against cyber-attacks will become null and void when cyber-attacks are launched by combining artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing. Such attacks, he said, will crack into systems by brute force, by going through all possible permutations of code until finding one that works. Quantum computing uses quantum mechanics to solve problems too complex for classical computers.
• The region has seen ransomware attacks double between 2022-2023, he said, costing US$1Bn, that otherwise could have been used for things like healthcare.
• Given the threat,  Governments need to facilitate the creation of opportunities to build and develop human competencies to lessen the likelihood of cyber-attack or ransomware attacks.

(Sources: Trinidad and Tobago Newsday & NCBCM Research)