For the sixth consecutive year, CICRA – one of the pioneering cyber security training and consultancy providers in Sri Lanka – took part in the United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) Multinational Communication Interoperability Program (MCIP) Pacific Endeavour conference 2018 in Nepal recently.
MCIP is an annual workshop to help identify and document communications and information systems interoperability among the participants. The program operationalises the goals of the MCIP and satisfy the intent of the USPACOM Theatre Security Cooperation Program.
Over 275 military communication experts, non-governmental organisations and academic advisers from over 26 allied and partner nations were involved in the event. The 2019 Pacific Endeavour was co-hosted by the US PACOM and Nepal Security Forces.
CICRA Group Director and CEO Boshan Dayaratne conducted training on incidence response, cyber security during Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HA/DR) activities, Disaster Management and Recovery.
“It is a great honour for CICRA to represent Sri Lanka for the sixth consecutive year at the US Pacific Command’s Cyber Endeavor program along with other multinational organisations,” Dayaratne said.
“This exercise was aimed at ensuring military experts are ahead of technological advances. Last year alone, several high-profile cyber threats and security breaches such as Heartbleed, Shellshock, breach at Target and JP Morgan Chase hogged several headlines throughout the year. These breaches had dire consequences and for all we know, it keeps escalating while more criminals continue to enter the cyber world,” he said.
“The perpetrator could be across the world, thus national boundaries no longer apply. This poses a looming threat to national security. This means we need to be prepared. Of course, there is no silver bullet for cyber-security. However, we should take measures to prevent and mitigate risks and continue to stay resilient. Cybercrime cannot be fought alone,” |Dayaratne said.
“Natural disasters can have several implications besides destruction of infrastructure. In fact, it can cause damage to your computer—or even your identity. We see Attacks on critical infrastructures increasing year on year. And use of AI is another serious concern on security, latest incident been the attempted attack on the Venezuelan President early August,” he said.
“During a natural disaster, guards are usually down. Communication people would be the first to go down as they’d be engrossed with the disaster itself and pay little attention to cyber threats during the crisis, in turn giving leverage to the criminals.
Top IT and cyber security firms also conducted training sessions and engaged in discussions.