Response team strengthening capacity to counter rampant cyberbullying

F our years ago, principals were calling it ‘a source of grave concern’ and ‘a major problem’. Now, in 2019, those labels remain appropriate when discussing the state of cyberbullying in Jamaica.

Cyberbullying is the use of electronic communication to bully someone. These messages are usually intimidating, threatening or embarrassing. A U-Report poll last year showed that 39 per cent of Jamaican youth face cyberbullying.

U-Report is a data collection system developed by UNICEF, which utilises social media in engaging a wide range of participants.

The Jamaica Cyber Incident Response Team (Ja-CIRT), attached to the Ministry of Science, Energy and Technology, and which assists in putting policies and strategies in place to protect Jamaica’s cybersecurity infrastructure, says it has been bombarded with calls from children and adults who are constantly being bullied through social media.

“They have been reporting it to the point where we have had now to include in our educational campaigns that we don’t do crime, because people are reporting everything to us,” Dr Moniphia Hewling, head of Ja-CIRT, told The Sunday Gleaner.

“I think because where we are we have this level of trust that we can offer discussion, that they tend to come to us first, then we refer them to the police (if necessary) because sometimes it’s not a criminal activity. So most of what we get are social media-related cyberbullying, but that is not explicitly stated in our act. Most of the time they want counselling, it depends. If there’s a threat, it’s the police, if it’s a child, we can refer them to the Office of The Children’s Advocate.”

Hewling said the unit is now undergoing training to strengthen its capacity for staff to be able to handle the types of conversations that take place with callers.

“You find that they will get a phone call and, if it’s certain things, they will call me. So we have to have training now for our staff to be able to deal with that,” she said.

“We get persons reporting threats, we get a lot of persons posting other persons’ sexual photographs that were taken, and we refer that straight to the police. We also get different levels of bullying, because you find a lot of that happens on social media. We’ve had reports of persons who purchase from local shops online and they don’t get the stuff so, again, you have to refer that to the police.”

INFORM THE ELDERLY

While most awareness campaigns focus on young adults and children, Hewling said the elderly need to be informed as well to protect themselves online.

“Never share sensitive information online. For older people, they don’t understand that sensitive information includes a picture of little Johnny when he was four years old bathing naked outside, so we tell them you don’t need to share that because if it spreads it can lead to cyberbullying. Giving out too much information can put your children and grandchildren at risk.

“We also tell them the usual – protect your pin and passwords – and we point out that all electronic devices do come with basic security settings that they can just go and check and apply. Often they are not default, you have to apply them, and the same thing goes for social media,” Hewling said.

Continuing, she noted that identity theft is also of particular concern for older individuals as it is always assumed that they have more money.

“So they are more likely to want your credit card details and, what’s worse, they are not necessarily the ones going to the bank. They give out the cards and the pins.”

The unit also has a web portal where victims can report cyber incidents anonymously.

The small team of three, which Hewling wants to see increased to at least six, also gets called on by the private sector for help with cyberthreats.

“We do get companies reporting ransomware,” she said.

Ransomware is a popular method by which cyberattacks are carried out on computer systems.

“It’s not really a hack, but it captures all your data so you probably clicked on something, probably click on a phishing email that downloaded something to your machine that would render all your productivity files useless,” Hewling explained.

“So they send you a ransom note to tell you ‘We have control and you need to pay us’, and ‘When you pay this amount in Bitcoins you’ll get your data back’.”

... Unit to add elements to cybersecurity awareness

Since it became operational in 2016, Dr Moniphia Hewling, head of the Jamaica Cyber Incident Response Team (Ja-CIRT), said one of the unit’s major achievements has been getting all key players in one space to discuss cybersecurity.

“We aim to be as proactive as we can be to warn persons, and so you find that persons are a bit more prepared, they now know how to respond,” Hewling told The Sunday Gleaner.

“This year, we have managed to increase our reach. Our awareness campaign, I would say, has been successful based on persons’ reaction to it. What we need to do now is probably just add elements to it. We added one element this year – human trafficking – because people need to see the link between human trafficking and cyber, because it is online that a lot of persons are recruited and groomed.”

Notably, Jamaica continues to top the Caribbean ranking for cybersecurity.

“The latest International Telecommunication Union report also shows us as number one in the English-speaking Caribbean, but we have managed to maintain that by just maintaining our strategic partnerships, continuous training, increasing our capacities, participating and updating our policies and legislation,” said Hewling.

“I don’t think that we maintain the position because we haven’t been hacked, that is not how we are judged. We are judged by the measures that we have put in place in case there’s an attack, so basically we are more prepared than other nations in the region. There are things that we do that make us more prepared than others.”

carlene.davis@gleanerjm.com