About the Activities
Panel 1: Value derived from cybersecurity strategies and pragmatic considerations for setting up a cyber defence
Multipronged cybersecurity actions, along with extensive cooperation among various actors, underpin the creation of a safe and trusted cyberspace in which everyone can be free to harness its potential for either social or economic ends. With over more than a decade of activity and since the launch of the Global Cybersecurity Agenda, handbooks and other resources were made available to help countries understand various cybersecurity imperatives, ranging from the setting up of appropriate strategies, policies and legal frameworks to operationalising national technical response teams and points of contact systems. Research shows that countries across the Caribbean region are quite disparate with their progress levels in setting up effective cybersecurity. Furthermore, beyond having various components in place the region needs to become fully vested in maintaining active cyber defences as increased efforts towards digital transformation and bridging the digital divide become more consolidated. It goes without saying that the global pandemic and the ensuing medley of long-term transformation and short-term pivot actions have created an environment in which cyber risk is evermore present.
This panel will address various aspects of cybersecurity strategies and cybersecurity readiness with a view to determining the Caribbean’s progress towards arming cyber defences. Cyber defence is set against the backdrop of not only securing economic investments of digital constituents, but also acknowledging the potential risks to the sustainability of the State with the natural advancement of digitisation and digital transformation.
The panel seeks to illustrate to various public safety actors the criticality of effective strategic planning and dynamic information flows to keep ahead in the provision of a safe and trusted cyberspace. Society is set to face new challenges as digital life and digital activities become more commonplace.
Panel 2: Rules and praxis for cybercrime frameworks especially legal cooperation: cybercrime/computer misuse laws, e-evidence, and the Budapest Convention
Modernised legislative frameworks are integral to the fight against cybercrime. Beyond modern cybercrime laws, an effective system takes into account the interplay between legislation on the one hand; and regulation and policies at the level of organisations and sectors, given the rapid pace at which the topography of cyber offences evolve. In the Caribbean, there is a hodge-podge of older laws such as computer misuse acts and newer cybercrime laws, which reflects disjointed alignment with disparate generations of cyber offences This mix-match has serious implications for the offences that can be investigated, evidence to be collected, and the eventual trial of cybercrimes. That being said, the preparedness of a country to investigate and prosecute cyber offences must be set not only within the jurisdiction of a singular country but also its synchronisation with other jurisdictions, as cyber incidents and cybercrimes tend to involve transnational elements more times than less. Along with cybercrime provisions, it would be foolhardy to ignore the imperatives of adjacent legal developments such as advanced data protection and privacy standards with global impact, and the requirements for producing admissible electronic evidence to effectively try cybercrimes and bring justice to the victims of same.
This panel will underline the importance of applying global standards in defining substantive legal issues within a jurisdiction, so that the identification, investigation and prosecution of cyber offences can occur.
Panel 3: From cyber investigations to preparing digital evidence: ways in which the Technical Community can help
The Technical Community has long-standing experience in addressing irregularities which may occur within their services and platforms. For example, there are clearly defined processes and procedures to prevent and mitigate against the abuse or misuse of Internet number resources, such as IPs when implicated in cyber attacks. Governance arrangements amongst technical actors have been ingenious, as they have allowed for the direct participation of people who are the generators or up-close users of technical knowledge, along with many other stakeholder groups that advocate for representation and inclusion of their interests. Given that materially, the outputs of the Technical Community are very much compromised in numerous cyber offences, it is only natural that enhanced knowledge of their ecosystem would be beneficial to the work that law enforcement and other stakeholders must do in detecting, investigating and prosecuting cyber offences.
It is imperative, however, that the intersections between the Technical Community, information security groups, and public safety actors are clear and active, so that greater familiarity among said groups would make for more effective cooperation in cybercrime investigations.
Digital Forensics Workshop
Digital forensics is a specialised branch of forensic science concerned with the identification, collection, preservation, analysis, and documentation of evidence and information often related to cybercrimes and to be used before a court of law. Applicable to criminal and private law contexts, digital forensics techniques are quite dynamic and are inextricably linked to technological advancement that fuels the growth and evolution of the Internet economy. This brief, interactive workshop serves as a primer to this dynamic field, as it is expected to deconstruct technical and techno-legal concepts in a non-technical way. Facilitated by the Regional Security System, the workshop will use real cases from North America and the Caribbean to explain concepts, and will be a precursor to extended activities to be announced at a later date.