Urgent need for cybersecurity vulnerability assessments

THE EDITOR, Madam:

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed many global digital networks to possible attacks from cyber criminals. Given this scenario, there is a need for a robust national cyber-security readiness and critical infrastructure protection for all our digital networks. These global cyber-attacks reiterate my own long-standing views that since the pandemic, the security threats to digital networks have become increasingly hostile and should be “zero trusted”. It is also important to ensure that organisations have a vibrant security vulnerability assessment programme in place. Here are some recommendations:

1. The areas of focus programmes should include (i) Putting a leadership team in place that is responsible for the vulnerability management within the organisation; (ii) Performing a thorough assessment of the organisation’s IT environment and providing detailed analysis of the network and security capabilities; (iii) Preparing a checklist of all security assessment pre-requisites

2. While this list of vulnerability assessment measures is not exhaustive, without these necessary and sufficient checks, an organisation is vulnerable to cyber attacks. The recent Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in the United States, which led to a complete shutdown of the crude oil services across the country was frightening. This highlights imminent danger to cyber-security infrastructure.

I am appealing to the local cyber-security community to run ongoing security vulnerability assessments and minimise the risk of data breaches albeit perceived or real . If one thinks this exercise is expensive, it becomes far worse when one has been the victim of a cyber attack. In some instances, one never recovers from the data breach, not to mention damage to the reputation of the company and huge revenue fallout.

SEAN THORPE

Head

School of Computing and Information Technology

University of Technology, Jamaica