#Jamaica, August 22, 2022 – The Biden Administration will provide $2 million in support of the creation of a Cyber Center of Excellence in Jamaica to benefit the region. The announcement was made by US VP Kamala Harris.

The starting up of the Cyber Center of Excellence will make Jamaica’s data and Internet systems more advantaged in the fight against cyber attacks.

Inspector Michael King, a past member of the NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said the facility will help in cyber education.

The Jamaican-born said it is important for everyone to understand how to guard against attacks because cybersecurity is a new route for attacks on companies and countries. King believes The Center of Excellence will inform users how to guard against opening up internet systems unfamiliar to the user.

“In a number of instances, people download things from the Internet without knowing the source of the information. They give out their emails and other personal information without understanding the consequence to themselves and the company or country,” he said.

Likewise, US-based Jamaican cybersecurity expert Michael Morsby, says the centre’s efforts will aid Jamaican businesses in lower daily losses from people downloading things from the Internet or opening up virus software that causes damage and exposure from those clicks.

“You open up something from an email that you don’t know, and immediately all your personal data is exposed. It takes time to have all this information retrieved from the dark web. This results in loss, time and money,” said Morsby.