Padarath: Government Misleading Citizens on TSTT Cyber Attack

Princes Town MP, Barry Padarath is calling on TSTT to come clean with the population on the circumstances surrounding the recent cyber attack on the service provider.

Padarath stated that when asked whether citizen’s personal information and data was compromised as a result of the cyber attack, Minister Marvin Gonzales told the Parliament on Wednesday November 1st that it was not. However, Padarath stated that several media outlets as well as IT experts have confirmed that the cyber attack did in fact compromise citizens’ personal information and data and the content can be viewed on the dark web.

The Opposition Shadow Minister for Public Utilities said this was alarming and disturbing since this puts citizens at risk in a country plagued by serious and violent crime. He cited an article in today’s Trinidad Express alleging that over one million customers’ data has been exposed on the dark web which includes names, identification numbers, emails and addresses. Padarath is also calling for the Minister of Public Utilities to say whether it is true that TSTT’s operational information and all the credentials for TSTT’s Mausica data centre has been leaked as well.

The Princes Town MP further stated that TSTT must treat this matter with a sense of urgency to protect customers and therefore they cannot bury their heads in the sand and refuse to provide clear coherent answers on what has occurred and what steps are being taken to expeditiously mitigate the effects.

The MP is calling for the government who is the majority shareholder of TSTT to provide strong leadership on this matter and ensure that international industry standards are met to stop further attacks as well as to secure private and confidential information hosted by the service provider. He added that such an attack in any other jurisdiction would have been met with greater transparency and stronger sanctions. The Princes Town MP is also calling for legislation to address cyber attacks, he indicated that the government has abandoned the Joint Select Committee on Cyber Crime after several years of work and nothing has been heard of it since. MP Padarath previously served as a member of the Cybercrime Joint Select Committee.