Hey, ease up on TSTT

ALLISON CHANG

I CAN'T understand why so many people, especially Opposition politicians and the media, are making such a hullabaloo about TSTT being hacked. Yes, it’s a fact, our state-owned telecommunications company was the victim of a cyberattack and, as a result, many people’s personal info is now out there on the dark web.

I don’t know how to access the dark web but, according to the geeks quoted in the newspapers, they know how, and they have been mining the info out there and sharing it with the media, who, in turn, while expressing concern and alarm, have been making it public. The irony is priceless.

And by the way, no need to go on the dark web, you can assess pretty much anyone’s name, address and ID number on the Elections and Boundaries Commission’s website, assuming they have an ID Card. And the older folks among us would remember the telephone directory which made public everyone’s name, address and phone number. It’s not like someone got our bank cards and PINs.

The reality is that cyberattacks are increasingly becoming part of the digital landscape we now all occupy. The Microsoft Corporation, the Pentagon, NASA, the UK’s National Health Service, the ANSA McAL Group, Massy Stores, our own Office of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs have all been victims of cyberattacks. Why do we think our state-owned telecoms company would somehow be immune?

Everyone is now dragging TSTT’s name through the mud, calling for independent investigations and opining on who should have said what to whom, when. To what end? What difference would it have made? What difference will it make going forward?

Does the Minister of Public Utilities honestly believe an investigation into the TSTT cyberattack will reveal who accessed its servers, how they did it, or whose fault it was? Or is he just trying to save face?

The contradiction between the minister’s utterances in Parliament and TSTT’s subsequent admission more than likely occurred because TSTT had shared with the minister what it had known of the attack at the time it was asked, ie, none of our information has been compromised as far as we are aware.

But politicians don’t speak that way. They assure you that the world is perfect because they are in power – or that it will become perfect when you put them back in power.

I’m wondering if anyone would have done anything differently if TSTT had said it had been hacked as soon as it suspected. Probably not. Everyone would have proceeded with their lives normal, normal, normal. Of course, still buffing TSTT for allowing their private information to be put at risk.

But Trinis like a bacchanal, and we get some nice lackaray to leggo in they pweffen, so now it’s everybody’s fault TSTT got hacked. The minister, the board, the entire executive…everybody must go. Jeez!

Seriously, and in hindsight, the best that TSTT could have done, on October 8 or 9, or whenever it was that it suspected something was wrong on its system, was to say, publicly: “We believe one or more of our servers may have been compromised. We do not yet know the nature or extent of the problem, and are now in the process of trying to so determine. We advise anyone who has a relationship with us to exercise increased vigilance .”

There is nothing more that one could say because, given the nature of a cyberattack, you don’t know what you don’t know.

And the vigilance that it should have asked all of us customers to exercise is the same vigilance that we needed to be exercising every day as we navigate the digital world in which we reside.

So, until our next cyberattack, stay vigilant.

ALLISON CHANG

Curepe