Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty is a col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and every­one must work to­geth­er to pro­tect the dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture and pro­mote a safe on­line en­vi­ron­ment.

He made the com­ments while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at the launch of the Over­watch Cy­ber Fu­sion Cen­tre, which is a se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions cen­tre.

Over­watch is a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Pre­ci­sion Cy­bertech­nolo­gies and Dig­i­tal So­lu­tions and the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank’s (IDB) Lab. The launch took place at the Brix ho­tel yes­ter­day.

“This is the first se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions cen­tre (SOC) in our re­gion and marks a piv­otal mile­stone in our coun­try’s, and the re­gion’s, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty in­fra­struc­ture,” Row­ley ex­plained.

The PM al­so not­ed that cy­ber­at­tacks have be­come in­creas­ing­ly so­phis­ti­cat­ed and per­va­sive, pos­ing sig­nif­i­cant risks to economies, pri­va­cy, and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

In this vein, he said Gov­ern­ment has made two sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­ven­tions: es­tab­lish­ing a Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion and in­tro­duc­ing the Cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty In­vest­ment Tax Al­lowance (CI­TA) to in­cen­tivise com­pa­nies to in­vest in cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty soft­ware and hard­ware that would aid in pre­ven­tion, de­tec­tion, re­sponse and re­cov­ery.

Fur­ther, Row­ley an­nounced that iGovTT, the im­ple­men­ta­tion part­ner of the Min­istry of Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion, has com­plet­ed a se­ries of con­sul­ta­tions with rep­re­sen­ta­tive groups across T&T and will short­ly launch its newest app which is de­signed to fa­cil­i­tate the ap­pli­ca­tions process.

Speak­ing on Over­watch’s ser­vices, Row­ley said they are de­signed to be ac­ces­si­ble and af­ford­able, es­pe­cial­ly for mi­cro, small, and medi­um-sized en­ter­pris­es (MSMEs).

“This in­clu­siv­i­ty will cre­ate the en­vi­ron­ment for even the small­est busi­ness­es in our re­gion to pro­tect them­selves against cy­ber threats, and so fos­ter a se­cure and re­silient dig­i­tal econ­o­my.

“As we cel­e­brate the launch of Over­watch, we are al­so cel­e­brat­ing a vi­sion of a safer, more se­cure fu­ture; a fu­ture where our busi­ness­es can thrive with­out the con­stant fear of cy­ber­at­tacks, where our cit­i­zens can en­joy the ben­e­fits of dig­i­tal in­no­va­tion with­out com­pro­mis­ing their pri­va­cy, and where our gov­ern­ments can op­er­ate with the con­fi­dence that our crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture is pro­tect­ed and se­cure,” he added.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Row­ley said Pre­ci­sion Cy­bertech­nolo­gies has part­nered with the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) and the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) to en­hance cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty train­ing and ed­u­ca­tion.

Richard Smith, chair­man of Pre­ci­sion Cy­bertech­nolo­gies and Dig­i­tal So­lu­tions Ltd, who al­so spoke not­ed tht cy­ber­crim­i­nals are in­creas­ing­ly lever­ag­ing AI to de­vel­op more so­phis­ti­cat­ed and elu­sive at­tacks, such as AI-pow­ered mal­ware that can adapt and evade tra­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures, and au­to­mat­ed phish­ing schemes that can con­vinc­ing­ly mim­ic le­git­i­mate com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

—GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO