KINGSTON, Jamaica – As the government continues to build resilience in the country’s cyber ecosystem, head of the Jamaica Cyber Incident Response Team (JaCIRT), Lieutenant Colonel Godphey Sterling, is urging local businesses to report security vulnerabilities within their organisations.

Sterling made the appeal while addressing a recent Jamaica Information Service ‘Think Tank’.

He said that such reports will aid in tackling cybercrimes, by keeping the government aware of what is happening in the various sectors, and improve how businesses protect clienteles’ data.

“We recognized that based on industry standards and international best practices, there are some basic things that need to be in place, and the role of the government is to facilitate this process,” he said.

“The manner in which vulnerabilities and breaches are remediated, redacted and reported must be agreed to by all parties,” he added.

While there is no legislation that mandates the disclosure of weaknesses in cyber defence or cybersecurity breaches within companies, Sterling said JaCIRT stands ready to continue to push this dialogue.

He commended those entities that have and continue to work with the JaCIRT and urged others to come on board.

In addition, Sterling is encouraging businesses to not just redact identified vulnerabilities, but also ensure that they adhere to the necessary privacy and data-protection laws.

“The advent of the Data Protection Act of 2020 means that data security and privacy have become more important as companies seek to become either data processors or controllers,” he said.

“It, therefore, means that you have to take all necessary steps to secure the environment within which you capture, store, transmit or process that data,” he added.