Rhon­dor Dowlat

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

TSTT CEO Kent West­ern is as­sur­ing the pub­lic that the com­pa­ny has tak­en de­ci­sive mea­sures to boost its cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty frame­work fol­low­ing an Oc­to­ber 2023 da­ta breach that ex­posed six gi­ga­bytes of cus­tomer da­ta.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, West­ern said, “Cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty is now a top pri­or­i­ty at TSTT. We are work­ing tire­less­ly to pro­tect our net­work, our cus­tomers, and our em­ploy­ees.”

The breach, ex­e­cut­ed by the hack­ing group Ran­somExx, saw stolen da­ta up­loaded to the dark web, spark­ing pub­lic out­rage and con­cerns over trans­paren­cy. While TSTT main­tained that the da­ta was out­dat­ed and ac­count­ed for less than one per cent of its to­tal stor­age, the in­ci­dent prompt­ed an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion com­mis­sioned by the com­pa­ny’s board of di­rec­tors.

West­ern a vir­tu­al Chief In­for­ma­tion Se­cu­ri­ty Of­fi­cer (vCISO) had since been hired to ad­dress vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.

“Short­ly af­ter I as­sumed the role of act­ing CEO, we in­tro­duced the vCISO po­si­tion to pro­vide on­go­ing lead­er­ship and con­sul­tan­cy on all mat­ters re­lat­ed to cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty,” he said.

“This role was specif­i­cal­ly de­signed to iden­ti­fy and mit­i­gate cy­ber risks, strength­en our de­fences, and en­sure com­pli­ance with in­dus­try stan­dards. It’s not just about re­act­ing to in­ci­dents—it’s about be­ing proac­tive and strate­gic.”

He added, “The in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the 2023 cy­ber­breach was com­mis­sioned by TSTT’s board of di­rec­tors. The board has re­ceived the re­port and has sub­mit­ted the doc­u­ment to the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties for his re­view. I am, there­fore, not in a po­si­tion to com­ment.”

To ad­dress the cri­sis, TSTT en­gaged lo­cal cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty firm Cy­ber­Eye to con­duct a root cause analy­sis and im­ple­ment a stronger cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty frame­work.

The fi­nal re­port on the breach, pre­pared by in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tors, was sub­mit­ted to Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les on Thurs­day. It de­tails the cir­cum­stances of the breach, its im­pact, and rec­om­men­da­tions to pre­vent fu­ture in­ci­dents.

Min­is­ter Gon­za­les, in a state­ment, ac­knowl­edged the grav­i­ty of the breach, say­ing the re­port would be sent to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment for re­view.

Gon­za­les said, “I haven’t re­viewed the re­port as yet. Al­so, I don’t pro­pose to of­fer any pub­lic com­men­tary on the mat­ter. I com­mis­sioned the in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion and promised that the find­ings would be made pub­lic in the in­ter­est of trans­paren­cy.”

The Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers’ Union has called for full dis­clo­sure of the re­port.

The fall­out from the breach was sig­nif­i­cant. For­mer CEO Lisa Agard was ter­mi­nat­ed in No­vem­ber 2023, fol­lowed by the de­par­ture of CFO Shi­va Ram­nar­ine. Cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions head Khamal Georges re­signed in June 2024.

For­mer TSTT CEO Agard, when con­tact­ed, said, “I haven’t seen it, so I’m not in a po­si­tion to com­ment.” Asked if she’s some­what re­lieved to know that the re­port was hand­ed in to the min­is­ter, Agard replied, “No com­ment.”