Cyber risks

The internet as we know it was invented in 1989 by British national Tim Berners-Lee. He imagined the web as an open platform that would allow everyone, everywhere to share information, access opportunities, and collaborate across geographic and cultural boundaries.

But the first recorded description of the social interactions that could be enabled through networking was a series of memos written by American J C R Licklider of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in August 1962 discussing his Galactic Network concept.

Decades later, what started as a cool trend accessible by few has profoundly changed the shape of our lives. It has expanded into a global network engaging billions on a daily business; enabling all sorts of technological innovations; supporting billions in trade; allowing the spread of information far and wide at rapid pace and facilitating social interaction and mobilization on a never-before-seen scale.

But the internet is now also the domain of a host of new, perilous, unprecedented threats. Cyber-hacking in the US presidential election, cyber-warfare, the spread of false propaganda on social networks, and this month’s cyber-attack that crippled the UK’s National Health Service and sent shockwaves across the world are but a few examples.

Concerns about privacy and abuse of power by the State have also emerged.

Last week, as World Telecommunication and Information Society Day was observed, the US Federal Communications Commission voted to overturn rules that force ISPs to treat all data traffic as equal – a blow to net neutrality or the idea that whatever is posted online is, at first instance, equally accessible by all. And in the UK, it emerged that Theresa May plans reforms that would curtail some of the freedoms on the internet.

The internet is more or less a broadcasting medium where information may be freely exchanged.

As such it has the capacity to cross borders and open doors; to educate and to enlighten. Any censorship of the internet must balance public interest concerns relating to law and order and security with the need for freedom, even in the digital realm.

Certainly, rules which will allow law enforcement agencies to combat cybercrime are advisable. The effects of the NHS hack were still being felt last week. Reports emerged that North Korea – which was also responsible for an attack on a Hollywood studio in 2014 – was also tied to the recent hack.

In Trinidad and Tobago, the Ministry of Public Administration last week assured that it has taken action to protect our own networks. Administrators and managers rushed to secure potentially vulnerable IT systems in Government’s infrastructure network Govnett. The statement revealed that operating systems within Govnett were being reviewed by the system’s developer and partner company, Fujitsu, for potentially vulnerable Windows systems operating in the network.

But notwithstanding these efforts, the fact remains the ministry will be unable to guarantee complete protection.

And as our past experiences demonstrate, we are vulnerable.

Even our Parliament’s website fell prey to an attack in 2012.

“This is a warning, what other hackers can do to your website.

Keep it in mind,” said an ominous message on the website from the hacker.

All of this points to the need for the long-delayed Cybercrime Bill 2017. That bill, which is currently tabled in Parliament, needs to be debated, modified if needs be and implemented as soon as possible so that our protections can have a robust framework.