KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – The head of the Jamaica Cyber Incident Response Team (JaCIRT), Lieutenant Colonel Godphey Sterling, urges businesses and citizens to adopt good cybersecurity practices to protect themselves against botnet attacks.
A botnet is a network of computers controlled by a single attacker infected by software designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to a computer system.
“What this means is that there are persons out there whose computers have been compromised and are part of a network that is used to conduct malicious activity, and they are unaware,” said Sterling, noting the re-emergence of botnets operating in Jamaica.
Sterling, addressing a Jamaica Information Service (JIS) ‘Think Tank,” said three botnets have been identified. They encourage persons to secure their devices by closely monitoring their networks, keeping software up-to-date, and replacing machines as necessary.
Persons are also urged to monitor failed logins to their systems.
He said there has also been an increase in the number of cyberattacks carried out against Jamaicans from perpetrators outside the country and that the figure now stands at just over 8,000 since the start of 2023.
The number of attacks from Jamaica against persons outside the country is also increasing.
Approximately 25,000 attacks were recorded during the first quarter of the year, which grew exponentially in the second quarter to more than 40,000.
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