The bolstering of cybersecurity is dependent on a national policy that will identify the deficiencies in legislation and establish a line of communication between the government and the private sector.
Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan yesterday said that he was made aware of the current deficiencies from a status report done by the Inter-American Development Bank, the Organisation of American States (OAS) and Oxford University which noted that the State has not formally assessed current assets and vulnerabilities.
Ramjattan was speaking at the National Cybersecurity Sensitisation Workshop’s opening ceremony at the Pegasus Hotel yesterday.
He said that the study found that owners of critical national infrastructure do not always adhere to security standards and do not report incidents to the proper authorities.
He noted that prior to reading the tripartite status report he was not aware that the Criminal Investigation Department of the Guyana Police Force was responsible for the investigation of cybersecurity threats.
Ramjattan, an attorney at law, noted that he was aware of the deficiencies among prosecutors and the judiciary as a whole in handling electronic evidence.
The Minister said “as of today Guyana has very limited financial resources in terms of funding and staffing specific cybersecurity initiatives.”
Elaborating, Ramjattan stated that the government would be taking an active role in the creation of a policy which would combat the roadblocks such as the lack of legislation. Ramjattan said that a comprehensive strategy to streamline all government agencies for easy access by the public was necessary.
He said that moving forward it was essential to build trust and confidence in the government information system and the security level.
Speaking to Stabroek News after the opening ceremony, Ramjattan said that cybersecurity was included in the government’s five-point security strategy. He said that first and foremost “we intend to sharpen up on the intelligence work of the police and inter-agency collaboration.”
“This is not T20 cricket we are playing it’s a test match we have to do it on the long haul. If we want T20 cricket we can end up doing a lot of nonsense”, he said, highlighting that the government was working with 2020 in mind while addressing the immediate needs simultaneously.
The minister said that the Closed Circuit TV initiative would be housed in a command centre with a broad overview of the capital city. “It is going to be a hugely expensive thing, but we have to find the money because crime is very depressing the crime rates are getting very high and we have to manage it,” he stated.
Dozens of Closed Circuit cameras were installed by the previous PPP/C government and there are many outstanding questions on how effectively these have been placed, how many are working, where the feeds are transmitted to and who is monitoring them.
Ramjattan echoed Finance Minister, Winston Jordan’s budget speech calling the level of crime in Guyana “depressing” while noting that the money being spent on the public security sector was aimed at improving the technical capabilities of the police and law enforcement agencies.
Head of the Computer Incident Response Team Guyana (CIRT), Sandra Khan during her presentation described the agency’s development since being instituted in 2013. She noted that while CIRT GY was not a law enforcement agency or an intelligence gathering agency it did provide critical data and was looking to expand its functions.
She reported that the major complaints that have been received by CIRT GY were a high level of website defacement and phishing attacks.
OAS representative here, Jean Dormeus noted that Latin America and the Caribbean has approximately 322M internet users which he said meant the region had to take an active stance on cybersecurity.
The sensitisation workshop will conclude tomorrow and participants will be trained to identify deficiencies among other things.
