Madam MC, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, Presenters and Conference Participants,

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1 Welcome Remarks by Professor Hopeton Dunn, Director Mona ICT Policy Centre, CARIMAC at Opening Ceremony of 4th National Cyber Security Conference at UWI Regional Headquarters November 28, 2016 Madam MC, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, Presenters and Conference Participants, GOOD MORNING! It is my pleasure to welcome you all to this the 4th National Cyber Security Conference, here at the University of the West Indies, hosted by the Mona ICT Policy Centre, at CARIMAC. Firstly can I ask that we collectively declare the Conference open with a round of applause! 1

2 Let me extend special welcome to a number of our special guests, in particular: Ambassador Richard Bernal, Pro Vice Chancellor for Global Affairs, UWI, and Mr Patrick Hylton, Group Managing Director, National Commercial Bank. We are also delighted that we are joined by a number of visiting specialists and speakers from overseas, including: Mr Cleveland Thomas, Caribbean Area Representative for the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Ms Jane Coffin, Director of Strategy, Internet Society (ISOC) Mr Shernon Osepa, Manager, Regional Affairs for the Latin America and the Caribbean Bureau, ISOC. Mr Praveen Amancheria, Chief Technology Officer, QUISK Incorporated, Mr Karsten Becker, CARICOIN Ltd, UK Mr Shiva Bissessar, ITU technical nominee and Director, Pinaka Technology Solutions, Trinidad and Tobago, and Mr Adekunle Ajiboye, Innovator and Systems Administrator, Ontario Canada. 2

3 I also warmly welcome our strong contingent of Local Experts, Members of the Diplomatic Community, Panel Presenters, Panel Chairs, Regulators, Academics, Legal Officers, Sponsors, Members of the Media, and of course our registered Conference Participants. I know that you have travelled from near and far to be with us this morning, despite inclement weather over the last few days in Jamaica, and notwithstanding the Local Government Elections taking place in our country today. Many of you are return attendees who understand as much as the newcomers, the critical importance of our Conference theme: "Cyber Security: Mobile Money, Online Banking and Citizen Awareness". These are the issues that we will explore over the next two days, during 5 plenary panel sessions, involving over 20 presentations and in the associated Q&A discussions. Cost of Cyber Crimes Since we met here last year, the frequency and cost of cyber attacks have escalated dramatically, both within our shores and in the external global environment. 3

4 In 2015, the British insurance company Lloyd s estimated that cyber attacks cost UK businesses collectively as much as US$400 billion a year, which includes direct damage plus post-attack disruption to the normal course of business. In the US, a 2015 study conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by HP Enterprise Security indicated that the average annualized cost of cyber crimes incurred by a benchmark sample of larger U.S. organizations was US$15 million per company, representing a nearly 20 percent increase, year on year, and an 82 percent increase since the study s inception six years ago. The net increase in the cost of cyber crimes over the six year span of the study was 82 percent. The results also revealed the average time it takes to resolve a cyber attack 46 days has increased by nearly 30 percent during this same six-year period. 4

5 It is our hope that the lessons of these costly attacks are being learned and applied to make our global and national networks, our banking institutions, government departments, universities, private companies and personal accounts less vulnerable to criminal attacks such as credit card fraud and identity thefts. We are pleased that this conference series hosted by the UWI since 2013 has so far played its role in heightening our readiness, including foreshadowing the establishment of the national Critical Incident Response Team, the CIRT, in the discussions that helped set in train the establishment of a local IXP, and in the greater prevalence of corporate cyber audits that are part of the range of proactive measures that we must take, now more than ever before. We welcome the public education campaigns for improved cyber security and banking security that are underway in Jamaica by the Technology Ministry and the Bankers Association respectively as we speak. 5

6 This year's conference will continue to play its vanguard role in sharing the best available global and local research and expertise and in this way help drive public policy and bring public awareness to online crimes that are often committed in private but with major public and corporate impacts. Sessions For reasons already intimated, today's deliberations will take us just past mid-day, to be followed tomorrow by a full day of panel sessions. Tomorrow, we expect to have Remarks by the Minister of Science, Energy and Technology and the Opposition Spokesman, both of whom, not surprisingly, are other engaged today. Once again, let me welcome all our visitors and thank everyone for coming out this morning to Cyber 2016! Thank You! 6