Cuba reported more than 2,600 cybersecurity incidents from January to September 2023

The telecommunications monopoly (ETECSA), through its National Cybersecurity Center and the Security Operations Center, detected more than 2,600 cybersecurity incidents from January to September 2023.

Daniel Ramos Fernández, director of digital business of the company, revealed to the official portal CubaYes that the events included denial of service cyber attacks, sending and receiving spam, malicious traffic generated by malicious code, service scans and exploitation of vulnerabilities, all of which compromised websites and other IT elements.

The crimes linked to natural persons, which represented 70% of the total and are related to cyberbullying, identity theft and scams through social networks and electronic payment channels.

Regarding the entities, the expert pointed out that human error is one of the main causes of cyber incidents.

"Violation of information security policies by IT security managers and users of these technologies prevails. Weak passwords are used and are not changed in a timely manner, staff visit unsecured websites and do not update passwords. system software or applications when necessary," he explained.

The use of services or devices without a security guarantee is another important factor that causes events of this type.

"We have detected the use of unauthorized systems and devices to share data that are confidential. Another action reported was the installation of unofficial software on work devices," he added.

Ramos Fernández stressed that in organizations and entities structures must be created to address cybersecurity and advocated training more specialists in this area, since this year the first Cybersecurity engineers graduate from the University of Computer Sciences (UCI).

"We must expedite the emerging training of specialists in short courses," he requested.

Finally, he pointed out that in 2024 effective actions must be implemented to create a culture in the safe use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in managers, specialists and the population in general, since the increase in their use as well as Electronic payments have created conditions for increased cyber threats.

"The legal regulations in this matter require permanent updating, because new problems and technologies emerge at a high speed that immediately impact cybersecurity," he stressed.