Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les says he has in­for­ma­tion on the cy­ber­at­tack on TSTT, and in­for­ma­tion be­ing “leaked” which refers to one “Kei­th Row­ley”, is not that of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

And at this point, no re­port con­firms that the per­son­al in­for­ma­tion of MPs has been af­fect­ed by the da­ta breach, Gon­za­les stressed.

Gon­za­les re­vealed this yes­ter­day in the Sen­ate while re­ply­ing to ques­tions from UNC Sen­a­tor Jear­lean John. She had asked, giv­en re­cent re­ports that the Prime Min­is­ter’s pri­vate in­for­ma­tion has been leaked due to the cy­ber­at­tack on TSTT, if any oth­er Cab­i­net min­is­ter, MP or sen­a­tor had been af­fect­ed.

Gon­za­les said the Gov­ern­ment has man­dat­ed TSTT’s board to con­duct a thor­ough and in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the Oc­to­ber 8 cy­ber­at­tack.

“I’m ad­vised that the board has al­ready tak­en steps to­wards fa­cil­i­tat­ing the com­mence­ment of this probe,” Gon­za­les said.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, TSTT is still in the process of eval­u­at­ing all as­pects of the at­tack, in­clud­ing the val­i­da­tion of all re­port­ed in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main ie, the per­son­al da­ta of all our cit­i­zens, in­clu­sive of mem­bers of Cab­i­net and par­lia­men­tar­i­ans. At this point in time, I do not have any re­port be­fore me that con­firms that the per­son­al in­for­ma­tion of Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment has been af­fect­ed by this da­ta breach.

“How­ev­er, as the re­sults of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­come avail­able, I will be in a po­si­tion to pro­vide fur­ther clar­i­ty on this on­go­ing sit­u­a­tion. This sit­u­a­tion re­mains of sig­nif­i­cant con­cern to the Gov­ern­ment and all re­sources are be­ing made avail­able to ad­dress this prob­lem.”

John asked what are TSTT’s plans to in­form cus­tomers in­di­vid­u­al­ly if their da­ta had been com­pro­mised, as this can lead to is­sues.

Gon­za­les said, “That’s the rea­son we asked for an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this mat­ter. (John’s) ques­tion is premised on in­for­ma­tion per­tain­ing to the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter be­ing ‘leaked’ in the pub­lic do­main. I have in­for­ma­tion that the re­port in (Mon­day’s) Guardian that refers to one ‘Kei­th Row­ley’ is not that of the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter and that is the rea­son why this mat­ter war­rants an in­de­pen­dent and thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion so we can truth­ful­ly re­port to the pub­lic on this very crit­i­cal is­sue.”

Con­tact­ed via What­sApp on who the “Kei­th Row­ley” re­ferred to in the mat­ter re­al­ly was, Gon­za­les said it was a Kei­th Row­ley of Wood­brook. He gave no fur­ther in­for­ma­tion.

TSTT CEO, Bankers' As­so­ci­a­tion must ex­plain–Rudy

Yes­ter­day UNC MP Rudy In­dars­ingh called on TSTT to say whether its servers were in­fil­trat­ed with the Ran­somEXX Hack six months ago. He al­so called on the Bankers’ As­so­ci­a­tion to say if any cred­it cards were af­fect­ed.

He said he had been in­un­dat­ed by calls from Cou­va South con­stituents con­cerned about whether their per­son­al da­ta was com­pro­mised and stolen. He called on TSTT to in­form af­fect­ed cus­tomers of the ex­tent of dam­age done, pos­si­ble im­pli­ca­tions and pos­si­ble re­me­di­al ac­tion.

In­dars­ingh said ini­tial­ly TSTT in­di­cat­ed that cred­it card in­for­ma­tion was not stolen. How­ev­er,  he said ini­tial­ly, TSTT de­scribed the at­tack as an at­tempt.  “We there­fore can­not trust TSTT’s word or Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les who al­so ini­tial­ly de­nied any at­tack against TSTT, then changed his tune.

“TSTT must al­so ad­vise whether it’s true the Ran­somEXX group in­fil­trat­ed its servers six months ago. If true, then it makes the non-re­port­ing of this a great con­cern, where­by this non-re­port­ing could have been due to TSTT’s cy­ber soft­ware be­ing in­ad­e­quate or TSTT man­age­ment try­ing to keep this mat­ter un­der the car­pet.”

In­dars­ingh added, “One won­ders whether the cy­ber se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments have been com­pro­mised due to the lay­offs of hun­dreds of TSTT work­ers over the past three years. One al­so won­ders whether this at­tack could have been arranged as a reprisal for em­ploy­ees laid off ... “

In­dars­ingh called on Gon­za­les and TSTT Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer Lisa Agard to con­firm

whether TSTT’s cy­ber se­cu­ri­ty mon­i­tor­ing is be­ing done by one per­son, adding there must be ac­count­abil­i­ty from Agard on how and why the breach was not made pub­lic.