(Trinidad Express) – Only seven of Massy Stores’ 23 branches reopened on Friday following Thursday’s cyber attack.
In a media release on Friday morning, the supermarket chain indicated that Westmoorings, Maraval, Alyce Glen, St Augustine, El Dorado, Chaguanas and Brentwood branches were reopened to customers from 7 a.m.
Massy said it was working assiduously to get the rest of the locations back up and running, but up to Friday night the situation remained the same with only those branches staying open. In Thursday’s release the company said it took immediate action and suspended all customer-facing systems, and has been working with third-party experts to resolve the situation. “Back-up servers were not affected and the technical team is actively working with the expert teams to restore the system safely and in the shortest time possible,” the company emphasised. Massy Stores assured it was not aware of any evidence at this time that any customer, supplier or employee data had been compromised or misused as a result of the situation.
Minister of Digital Transformation Hassel Bacchus on Friday described the cyber attack at Massy Stores as a wake-up call. Speaking with i95.5fm, Bacchus said it may not be the only incident of its kind and clearly shows there is need for the country to be well protected.
“All companies need to have the necessary mechanisms that would protect them from these attacks and, more so, companies need to know how to address these kinds of problems when they occur. It may be a wake-up call for some, but this is just the latest, in the series of attacks that have happened not just in Trinidad but globally. The Government will make sure that any of our electronic systems we deploy always have the maximum security level of protection that is afforded,” Bacchus said. He also said that the Government is well on the road to ensuring all services have been digitised.
“The last count I did we had about 100 services available online. Really when you talk about being fully digital, you must be able to transact all your business through an electronic medium. Not all our services are like that presently and the more we get to that stage, we will be considered to be a transformed nation, but that takes time,” the minister explained.
And in an interview yesterday, managing director of Precision Cybertechnologies and Digital Solutions Dr Ronald Walcott said a robust cybersecurity framework is important to give companies a fighting chance against hackers. Walcott, a former TSTT chief executive, said there has been a 600 per cent increase in cybercrime activities in Latin America and the region for the past two years. He noted that his company is trying to educate people and to make sure they understand that these attacks are real and on the increase.
“Particularly employees of organisations, companies need to relook at the risk that they are taking, which means that they should look at their cyber security exposure. “Because you need to secure your networks, you need to ensure that all of your critical data is encrypted and that you have it backed up and stored. And that you are always vigilant,” Walcott said.
He advised that proper security measures are crucial in ensuring that hackers do not enter data systems.
“Basic measures are not advisable with the increase in attacks, so robust security measures are needed in these modern times. The biggest weakness in some organisations is the employees, because a lot of times, the easiest way to get malware into an organisation is to send it through an e-mail and people click on it and they open up a file that they shouldn’t and that is all the hackers need. So educating people is important,” Walcott added.
