By Sue-Ann Wayow
FORMER chief executive officer of the Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) Lisa Agard may have to answer pertinent questions asked by Parliament in relations to the cyberattacks on TSTT’s network last year.
But, Agard is threatening legal action saying she did not mislead the line minister on the cyber attack.
On Monday, members of the TSTT board were grilled for more than two hours by the members of the Joint Select Committee (JSC) on State Enterprises examining TSTT’s management of the cybersecurity breach of data before, during and after its occurrence.
Apart from the actual breach that caused sensitive data such as phone numbers and addresses to be leaked publicly, the TSTT board was interrogated as to why the public was made aware of the incident weeks after the actual occurrence in the first week of October 2023.
Chair of the JSC Anthony Viera said during the meeting, “Obviously this committee is determined to understand or get to who misled the minister and at large the country. We want to find out that. If it is being suggested that that came from the former CEO’s desk then I must tell you out of fairness, we will have to call in the former ceo and interrogate her as well. But we want to get to the bottom of that.”
He also said the JSC needed to know who in TSTT knew that the breach was occurring, who was told subsequently and why was the public only told weeks later.
Prior to Viera’s statements, TSTT’s chairman Sean Roach told the JSC , “I agree with your pain as chair of TSTT, in hindsight when I look at what has happened, it is hurting to me as well and that is why I apologised earlier and I acknowledge that things should have been done differently in TSTT with regards to the communication with our stakeholders and to the public at large.”
However JSC member Wade Mark said, “The last person who apologised to Trinidad and Tobago on the breach which is now history, I hope you don’t follow in her path because she apologised, she said sorry and the next thing I knew Mr Chairman she was given her walking papers so I just hope Mr Roach, you are not in line after Mrs Lisa Agard.”
Agard who was appointed TSTT’s first female CEO on May 24, 2021, was replaced by Acting CEO Kent Western last November, weeks after the cyberware attack with no specific reason given for her replacement.
In his line of questioning Mark referred to TSTT as “our TSTT” declaring loyalty to the state owned company.
“I say our because I never buy a Digicel. I am a TSTT man so I love TSTT. And it hurts me to see what is going on there,” he said.
TSTT’s Senior Manager of Corporate, Environmental, Social and Reputation Management Khamal Georges also admitted the public should have been made aware of the breach as soon as it occured.
He said, “We as a company, we are learning the lessons from that particular instance, relooking some of our processes and strategies and god forbid, it happens again, we do better by our stakeholders and our customers.”
Speaking to local media on Monday, Agard denied providing misleading information to Gonzales.
