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Jamaica faces a surge in cyberattacks, with over 34 million attempts in the first six months of 2025. The Fortinet report highlights the urgent need for stronger cyber defenses against evolving AI-driven threats targeting critical sectors. Simple steps can reduce attacks. #cybersecurity #Jamaica #cyberattack #AI #threatlandscape
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[Music]
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Welcome back to Prime Time News
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and a special welcome once again to our
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viewers on TVJ International in the
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Cayman Islands and online at
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onesspotmedia.com.
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We begin this evening with a startling
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revelation. Jamaica recorded more than
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30 million cyber attack attempts in just
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the first 6 months of 2025. That's
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according to the latest Forinet Global
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Threat Landscape report. Now it says the
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findings highlight the urgent need for
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stronger defenses to protect the
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country's critical infrastructure as
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attackers increasingly target sectors
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such as manufacturing,
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telecommunications, healthcare, and
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financial services.
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Roard Lions has details.
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34 million. That's how many attempts of
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cyber attacks Jamaica recorded in the
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first 6 months of 2025.
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34 million attempts in 181 days. The
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data was revealed in the latest Forinet
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Global Threat Landscape report. It says
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in the same six-month period, 4 million
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active scans were detected. These scans
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are networks being probed and tested by
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attackers at a staggering pace of 36,000
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attempts per second worldwide, helping
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cyber criminals identify weak points
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they can exploit. And artificial
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intelligence AI has been creating more
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loopholes in the cyber security
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landscape. Attackers are leveraging
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tools like Fraud GPT and Worm GPT to
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quickly generate convincing fishing
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emails and carry out social engineering
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schemes. IT expert Craig Pow says it's
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easy. I think anybody who is 13 years
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old today in Jamaica who has a phone, a
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iPhone or Android would have the ability
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to to do the thing because if you're on
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Tik Tok or you're on Instagram and
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you've seen any of those prank calls
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with fake voices, it doesn't take much
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intelligence to do it because there's
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systems right now that you can go on for
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free.
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And how difficult is it for an
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individual to know? I think it's really
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really hard because the problem with the
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internet is that anyone can say anything
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and if somebody who has authority in
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real life says something and it looks
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like him, it sounds like him or her and
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the average person just scrolling by
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within a bunch of videos that are real.
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In the context of seeing a bunch of real
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things and then I see a fake thing, I
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might not be able to tell.
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Now, an even bigger issue, cyber
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criminals aren't stealing data. Instead,
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they're shutting down services and
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making demands like this.
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All your files are encrypted. Pay
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$10,000 or lose everything.
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This was Dale Joseph, cyber crime policy
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specialist at the Caraccom
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implementation agency for crime and
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security in 2022.
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I I would con consider them um
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simple attacks and they lose a lot of
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money. Um so it's it's important that we
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just follow the simple ABC rules. um
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verify everything going forward and that
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in in from from our perspective is
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actually going to reduce some of the um
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these these attacks that
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it's recommended that at the basic level
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organizations close security gaps,
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enforce multiffactor authentication and
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manage user credentials carefully. In
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the meantime, the JN group is urging
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Gmail users to strengthen their account
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security and adopt safer login
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practices. The warning follows Google's
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recent alert to its 2.5 billion users
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about a breach and the potential for
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increased hacking attempts exploiting
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its exposed business contact
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information. Even though passwords were
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uncompromised, attackers can use the
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leak data to do harm. Attackers will
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generally send email that looks
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legitimate with users details. They can
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craft urgent or personalized messages,
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increasing the likelihood that these
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users will let down their cards. Ramardo
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Lions, TVJ News.
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#Computers & Electronics
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