SANTO DOMINGO.-As technology advances creating facilities for users, in the same way the rise of cybercriminals will increase, and this because it will be less and less necessary to carry money and valuables that attract common criminals, but with a cell phone they can carry the digital resources to make payments.
As for the institutions, they have to make large investments to protect themselves from technological attacks, especially banks, which allocate many resources to shield the information they have from their clients.
What are cybersecurity and cybercrime? Cybersecurity seeks to protect technological assets, which are the different physical pieces of equipment, and logical assets, which are the information that is protected in the equipment.
This has the purpose of establishing mechanisms and protocols to shield themselves from cybercriminals, who seek to break that security that is implemented in any type of technological system, be it a simple page or a bank application.
While cybercriminals seek to harm people through identity theft (phishing) or theft of information to gain access to bank accounts and social networks, and from there extort money from those affected, according to the cybersecurity expert, Ángel Louis Garcia.
In the Dominican Republic, various state institutions have been attacked by hackers, the most recent case being the Dominican Agrarian Institute (IAD), where historical documents of the institution are under the domain of cybercriminals, for which they have requested the sum of 600 thousand dollars to free them.
The director of the National Cybersecurity Center (CNCS), Juan Gabriel Gautreaux, reported that they are working with the IAD to solve the situation, and announced that the Government does not contemplate paying to recover the hacked data.
So far this year, 14 portals of state institutions have been hacked.
Last year, 1.3 million malicious traffic events were recorded on government web portals, of which 451,364 were directed to the Dominican Republic.
attacks
—1— Statistics
Since 2020 in the country, some 17 portals of public institutions have been hacked by cybercriminals.
—2— Other hacks
Other portals of state institutions have been affected by cyberattacks in recent days.
Timely actions to prevent
Impact. According to the director of the CNCS, Juan Gabriel Gautreaux Martínez, in order to take timely actions and prevent significant impact incidents, activity must be observed through continuous security monitoring, as well as taking cyber hygiene measures to mitigate threats, such as the application of Multiple Factor Authentication (MFA) in technological platforms.
Gautreaux Martínez emphasized that from the Ministry of the Presidency actions are carried out within the framework of the National Cybersecurity Strategy 2030, in order to strengthen the cybersecurity ecosystem at the national level.
