Strengthen cyber security in banking, energy: Expert

Manama : Banking and energy sectors are  most vulnerable to cyber attacks and the government should make it a priority to protect these sectors, according to a top cyber security expert. Ron Moultrie, Former Director of Operations at US National Security Agency (NSA) urged Bahrain government to continue strengthening cyber security in the banking, energy and telecommunication sectors as these sectors are the most vulnerable to cyber attacks. He said that Bahrain must make it a priority to identify the key areas vulnerable to cyber attacks.

“Clearly the financial and banking sector are vulnerable while energy sector is similarly vulnerable, so are telecommunication organizations and the government organizations.  The threats in this part of the world is similar to that of what we see elsewhere in the world. This region has as many vulnerabilities, if not more, as anywhere else in the world. So it is very important that we take the appropriate cyber security precautions to ensure that countries in this region are protected,” he said.

“If you look at recent history there have been documented attacks such as the attack on Saudi Aramco not long ago. This should be concerning for Bahrain because if it can happen to an ally, it can happen to Bahrain as well. So the Bahrain government has to do everything it can to ensure that it is protected,” he said. 

Speaking about the trends in cyber threats, he singled out ‘ransomware’ as one of the leading attacks. “We are seeing a number of trends like ransomware being deployed: With the ransomware hackers are accessing the computer system and encrypting that data so that you cannot use your own data,” he said. 

He praised Bahrain’s keenness in strengthening cyber-security. “I have been impressed from what I have seen in Bahrain, I have had talks with the Central Bank of Bahrain and I was very happy to hear that there are steps that the central bank has already taken to ensure security. I had also met also telecommunication corporations here and I was briefed about their cyber security programmes. They are taking the right steps, what we need to do is to ensure that the efforts are unified across all of Bahrain,” he said.