Herman Kintol presents on cybersecurity during the 2024 Friends of Business Summit: Cybertech Editon at Crowne Plaza Resort on Thursday.
HERMAN Kintol, the owner of KRS Cyberworx and a former IT and communications manager of CNMI Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said the islands’ geographic “isolation” is not enough to keep cyberattacks at bay.
Kintol was the morning session speaker during the 2024 Friends of Business Summit: Cybertech Edition at Crowne Plaza Resort.
His address was titled “Understanding Cybersecurity Defense: Mitigating Risks on the Offense.”
He said it’s important for business owners in the CNMI to educate themselves about cyberattacks and to take precautions against them.
“Just because we’re far away doesn’t mean we won’t be victims,” Kintol said.
He cited numerous instances over the past decade when businesses in the CNMI or Guam were affected by cyberattacks, such as in 2015 when a hotel’s point-of-sale systems in Saipan and Guam were hacked, leading to some customers experiencing credit card fraud.
Kintol likewise mentioned the “bad actors” who attacked Guam Memorial Hospital in 2023, and a separate attack that hacked Docomo Pacific that same year.
Late last month, the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. said it was “threatened by potential data exfiltration” that posed “significant threats” to patient confidentiality and availability of sensitive medical data.
“To summarize, a lot of these events…happened in the past six or seven years [so] we want to emphasize that even though geographically we’re isolated in the West Pacific, it does not mean we are not closely connected to the rest of the digital world,” Kintol said.
He said employees trained in cybersecurity awareness are vital to protecting business assets.
“Many people assume if they have the best technology — software and hardware — in place, a lot of times they’ll assume they have 100% coverage. We don’t feel…that’s true,” Kintol said. “The human factor is the first line of defense when it comes to cybersecurity.”
