The Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) says. At the same time, it has been a recent victim of a cyber attack, “there was no loss or compromise of customer data. No data was deleted from TSTT’s databases or manipulated”.
Last weekend, international hackers Ransomexx announced that it had infected TSTT with ransomware and stole as many as six gigabytes (GB) of its data, including names, e-mail addresses, national ID numbers, phone numbers, and “a lot of other sensitive data.”
Ransomexx said it has the stolen data, showing a CSV file with detailed information from more than 800,000 TSTT customers.
In a statement, the Communication Workers Union (CWU) said that on October 16, this year, it had alerted the public to TSTT’s network allegedly being hacked.
“The CWU is, therefore, not surprised that the hacker group known as Ransomexx has added TSTT to their list of victims.
Moreover, the group has claimed that they have access to over 6GB of data from TSTT, inclusive of personal information on customers. It is important to state that this is not the first time TSTT has been hacked, and once again, it could have been avoided.”
The CWU said that its information is that this hack was caused as a direct result of TSTT’s “wilful and deliberate negligence,” adding that the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Shiva Ramnarine, “as far as we have been made aware, has allegedly, repeatedly refused to spend money on cyber security, claiming that it’s too costly.
“They are now paying the price for his actions and the incompetence of Ms. Lisa Agard’s leadership as chief executive officer. The union believes that they are acting inimical to the best interest of TSTT, and any serious Board of Directors or Government would have fired them already.
“Today we renew our call for the immediate dismissal of both Shiva Ramnarine and Lisa Agard as they have compromised not only the interest and revenue earning capacity of TSTT, but they have compromised the privacy and confidentiality of the customers of TSTT and the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago on the whole.”
But in its statement, TSTT said, “At this time, the company has not corroborated data currently in the public domain purported to be TSTT’s customer information, and it should be noted that the various TSTT platforms generate terabytes of data.”
The company said that on October 9, cyber attackers attempted to gain unauthorised access to its systems.
“Cyber threats of this nature are a continuous feature of modern digital operating systems, and telecommunications infrastructure is no exception to these threats and incursions. TSTT has continuously invested resources in the millions of dollars in its processes and IT infrastructure to protect its systems and the data it produces and stores,” it said.
TSTT said at the onset of the threat, its incident response processes were “swiftly activated” and that internationally recognised cyber security experts were also enlisted to help deal with the problem.
“The company took immediate steps to minimise the security vulnerability, successfully isolating its systems and applications. These applications were quarantined, rebuilt, and returned to production as part of clearly defined policies and procedures.
“The company also enlisted the support of internationally recognised cyber security experts and partners in investigating the attempted breach and advising on implementing appropriate additional security measures and protocols. Some of these recommendations have already been implemented.”
The telecommunications company said its cyber security processes operated optimally and were able to “restrict these criminals’ malicious plans.”
“TSTT strongly condemns the actions of these terrorists in unlawfully attempting to gain access to its customers’ information. The company will continue to invest in hardening its IT environments under the guidance of international cyber experts to ensure the security of customer information,” it added.
Last year, Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonsalves told Parliament that on March 13, TSTT was also the target of a malware “incursion” when its systems detected a security attack directed at several of the company’s internal-only solutions/applications.
TSTT said in that attack, no ransom was paid.
“No customer, employee, or company data was compromised. It is important to note that TSTT’s suite of connectivity services for residential and corporate customers remained fully functional,” the company said then.
Source: CMC
Photo Credit: TSTT
