Roy Richardson and his wife Alouschka Harms-Richardson, owners of Orlando, Florida-based Aurora InfoTech.
PHILIPSBURG--There has been a massive uptick of cyber-criminal activities over the last two years, said Roy Richardson, co-founder of Aurora InfoTech, according to its website one of the world’s Top 250 Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) for 2021. In his presentation to Parliament on Monday, the cyber security expert warned: “Every eleven seconds an organisation gets impacted by ransomware.”
Member of Parliament Melissa Gumbs of the Party for Progress (PFP) had requested the Central Committee meeting on Cybersecurity Challenges Facing Governments and Public Entities out of concern for the safety of St. Maarten people’s data.
“As a faction we have been questioning the importance applied to cyber security as Government continues to digitise, whether it is through the Country Packages or through existing plans,” Gumbs said. “The digital safety of our government-owned companies is paramount to ensuring that we can continue to grow and develop while also keeping our people’s data secure.”
Utilities company NV GEBE was hit by ransom software virus “Black Byte” on March 17, 2022. The cyber-attack interrupted the company’s systems. GEBE management advised the public not to open any GEBE emails or attachments until further notice. NV GEBE was faced by a demand from the Black Byte ransomware group to pay US $52 million for the return of 11,000 leaked records.
“In light of what occurred at NV GEBE I found it pertinent to have this meeting so that the people can become a little bit more aware of what happened,” Gumbs told Parliament. “The seriousness of cyber-attacks on especially public entities should not be underestimated.”
The hackers have better computer systems and better security than we do, said Richardson. “When they can take down an organisation for a couple of hundred thousand dollars, or millions, they can afford to buy the most sophisticated computer systems and technology around. Their systems are so advanced that it is hard to pinpoint where they are and how they are doing this.”
It is an unlevel playing field, Richardson stated. “Hackers are developing code that people click on, and when they click on it, because their computer systems are not well protected, they don’t have different layers of protection in place, they become easy victims.”
Cyber threats are continually changing and becoming more complex, and most businesses lack the capacity, workforce, and tools necessary to keep their security measures up to date, Richardson said. “In fact, every organisation that experienced an incident had an incredibly strong IT (Information Technology) department that thought they did not need an external security service provider or security consultant to augment their team.”
Ransomware has increased year after year, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic, by more than 715 per cent, Richardson said.
“Ransomware as we know it affects a new victim every 11 seconds and every 20 seconds a new phishing website is created by cyber attackers. Ninety-one per cent of data breaches that occur are actually caused by phishing emails. That means that somebody is clicking on something that they are not supposed to be clicking on. And when they do that, they allow the attackers to come into the organization.”
Business email compromise often ends up having to do with financial fraud, Richardson said. “Hackers wait and study the organisation, the staff, and when the time is right they impersonate you. Or they intercept invoices, change the info at the bottom of the invoice, resulting in the client paying the hacker instead of the business.”
Cyber security has no boundaries and, when it comes to cyber-attacks, both government entities, the business sector and private persons are affected, he said. “Cybercriminals are after your digital assets, they are after what is in your digital file cabinets, which is everything you have on your hard drive, whether it is your personal computer, your business computer or your network. The reason they are doing that is because data has become the new digital cash.”
According to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), cybercrime today has surpassed traditional crimes. “It has surpassed the gangsters and the drug lords and all the other criminal activities,” said Richardson, recounting that last year cybercrime cost more than US $6 trillion in damage. “That amount is forecast to increase year over year to $10.5 trillion in the year 2025.”
This represents the single largest and greatest transfer of economic wealth in the history of the world, Richardson said. “$10.5 trillion every year! As you can well imagine, this becomes unsustainable, in particular to the banking and insurance industries, which are the hardest hit. As a result, banks are no longer covering fraudulent transfers.”
In cyber security there is no one piece of software or technology you can buy that actually protects you, Richardson explained. “Having antivirus in place by itself, which many of us still rely on today, gives you a false sense of security. It is better to have it, but it won’t stand up by itself against today’s sophisticated threats.”
When you start preparing the layered approach you need to have in place, you need to first look at the human side of things, said Richardson. “Remember that 91 per cent of all data breaches start with somebody clicking on something. Twenty per cent of employees actually click on a phishing email. So, we need to start with the human side of cyber security, by educating our peers, educating our staff.”
He emphasised that he is not talking about a once-in-a-year security training or a YouTube video. “We can’t expect our people to be part of the human firewall if we are not consistently training them. It is essential to start looking at implementing ongoing security awareness training, almost on a weekly or biweekly basis, to educate our people. I am not only talking about employees, but from the very top, from the board member, right down to the work floor.”
Everyone in the organisation needs to be aware of what the threats are and what to look for, Richardson said. “We need to phish-test them as well, send them phishing tests so that they can see who gets caught up on certain things.”
The next layer is the perimeter, he said: “Here we start looking at the tools and technologies to keep your organisation safe from outsider threats. Think of a fortress: you want to keep the bad guys out. Next we need to look at the network, monitoring it, so we can detect when things are happening on that network. And then we also look at the end points, ensuring next generation end point protection with a number of applications that help bolster your security fabric.”
Understanding that data is digital cash, government entities and businesses will want to focus on business continuity and disaster recovery, Richardson said. “The importance of backing up, not only on the premises but also in the ‘cloud’. Backup with ransomware detection and protection built in.”
Aurora InfoTech, based in Orlando, Florida, is the second technology company of Roy Richardson and his wife Alouschka Harms-Richardson, the president of the company. Previously the couple, both born St. Maarteners, owned Internet provider Caribserve.net, which was founded in 1999 and sold to United Telecommunication Services (UTS) in 2008.
Aurora InfoTech brings more than 25 years of experience to the market and has grown to rank among the world’s top 250 MSSPs out of 80,000 MSSPs worldwide. The Richardsons’ mission is to help government entities, non-governmental organisations and business owners secure their networks and to enable them to focus on their development and peace of mind.
