By The Star Staff
The Puerto Rico Innovation and Technology Service (PRITS) is redoubling its efforts to prevent cyberattacks as part of Puerto Rico’s Cybersecurity Plan 2024, which seeks to protect information.
As of September, some 82,183,788 attempted attacks on the government of Puerto Rico had been detected and blocked.
For the first time, PRITS conducted Cyber Tabletops in collaboration with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a component of the United States Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI. The exercises measure the response capacity of agencies and municipalities to a cyberattack. The Public Safety, Treasury, Education, Family and Natural & Environmental Resources departments, the Medical Services Administration, the University of Puerto Rico and its Medical Sciences Campus, the Comptroller’s Office, the State Historic Preservation Office and the Planning Board participated.
“In compliance with cybersecurity standards, at PRITS, we developed the Cybersecurity Policy that establishes the government framework to guarantee the implementation of solid measures to protect information assets, including procedures, guidelines, physical and technical controls, and the minimum cybersecurity requirements for all agencies,” said Antonio Ramos Guardiola, the island government’s CEO of Innovation and Information.
Cyber Tabletops focused on presenting exercises to confront, in real-time, a cyber threat and measure the response capacity of the agencies. According to the results, the central government’s Cyber Incident Response Plan, also developed by PRITS, will be adjusted to continue the education and training process by establishing the roles and responsibilities of the interested parties.
“This additional effort helps us establish centralized governance, policies, and standards in cybersecurity,” said Poincaré Díaz Peña, the government’s chief cybersecurity officer. “In addition, we can understand the cybersecurity posture and continuously assess risk to protect citizens’ data and expand secure digital public services. We continue to cultivate the cyber workforce of the Government of Puerto Rico through education to promote secure cyberculture throughout Puerto Rico.”
In 2023, some 517,885,218 attacks were detected and blocked, while in 2022, about 753,276,059 were detected and blocked. “We certainly see a decrease in attempted attacks and thanks to the strategies implemented, a reduction of almost 50% in successful attacks has been achieved,” Ramos Guardiola said. “We will continue our mission to strengthen the government’s cyber resilience, implementing measures that protect our citizens’ information and ensure the continuity of public services.”
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