Photo: @MMarreroCruz

Havana, Nov 24 (RHC) Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said Wednesday the need to work permanently on identifying and eliminating security gaps in infrastructures and technological platforms, as well as promoting a security culture , raising risk perception and encouraging its responsible use.

In the context of the First Cybersecurity Conference at the territorial level, Marrero inaugurated in Havana the First National Workshop on this strategic issue, on which he ratified the high priority given by the Cuban State, due to its close link with the security and defense of the Revolution.

Before representatives of armed institutions and organizations, he recalled the words of Army General Raúl Castro during the 8th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (2021), when he warned that there should be no room for naivety at this point and the excessive enthusiasm for new technologies, without first ensuring computer security.

Marrero expressed his joy for the presence in the workshop, held until Friday at the José Antonio Echeverría Technological University of Havana, of a mass of young people committed to the defense of cyberspace, with the same zeal that for years, we have defended the physical space of our country, he said.

He recalled that the history of U.S. aggressions using communication channels against Cuba dates back to 1959, with the triumph of the Revolution, and indicated that from 1960 onwards there were countless hours of transmissions to discredit and destabilize the country, when Radio Mambí, La Cubanísima, Radio Fe, and the misnamed Radio Martí, among others, came into being.

He explained that with the development of the Internet and social networks, the U.S. nation, from its hegemonic role in these infrastructures and platforms, found new ways to carry out its plans of political and ideological subversion against its adversaries and particularly against Cuba.

Let's not forget that this government created 2018 the Internet Working Group for Cuba, with the aspiration that social networks become subversion channels, as well as to design wireless networks outside state control and to carry out cyber-attacks on critical infrastructures, he pointed out.

In 2021, our country was the target of cyber-attacks on news portals such as those of the Presidency, Granma, Cubadebate, and the Government, as part of an offensive from the United States and other countries, he said before Army Corps General Alvaro Lopez Miera, Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, and Jorge Luis Perdomo, Deputy Prime Minister.

He stressed that images and false news were also generated to manipulate the Cuban reality, as part of a media campaign.

Faced with this scenario of unconventional warfare, Cuba improved its legal framework, and its organization, and created the National Working Group for Cybersecurity, established in the Directive of the President of the National Defense Council to strengthen Cybersecurity.

He emphasized that in the work of this Group, the main problems affecting the country's cybersecurity have been identified, and solutions are being projected and implemented that tend to minimize the existing risks, creating better response capabilities that strengthen this field of action.

He expressed that Cuba also defends the cooperation of all States and the democratization of cyberspace, as well as condemns its use and that of the radio-electric spectrum for purposes contrary to the above, including subversion and destabilization of sovereign nations.

Cuba has identified cybersecurity as a priority, so it has proposed to hold the First Cybersecurity Day with national scope, which includes central activities, sectoral events, and broad popular participation, in physical and virtual space, to raise awareness and cybersecurity culture of managers, specialists, and citizens on the importance of this issue for the development of the country and its national security.

Only the capacity for unity and integration will allow us to move forward with the speed required to face the present and future challenges of cybersecurity, and we will advance with firm steps, sure of victory, he concluded.

After the inauguration of the workshop, the Prime Minister and other leaders toured the Cybersecurity Solutions Fair, where armed institutions and agencies exhibit products and services for the strategic task. (Source: ACN).