Cyber crime poses a serious threat to Bermuda, an expert warned yesterday.

Fred Oberholzer, head of cyber security in the Bermuda office of global financial services firm KPMG, said: “If a person has a look from an international point of view, cyber security is one of the hot topics in the world at the moment.

“There have been a number of high-profile things that have happened that had a significant effect on the way people perceive the security they have when they use the internet — privacy of information and security around things like credit card information.”

Mr Oberholzer added that a major cyber attack in Bermuda would not only put companies and individuals at risk, but also compromise Bermuda’s reputation as a safe place to do business.

And he said that an attack on US chain store Target which compromised customers’ credit card details and the hacking of the Apple cloud which meant intimate photographs of celebrities became public were both examples of damage to company reputations.

He said: “These things heighten peoples’ awareness about the importance of having good security — these were international incidents, but the reality is we are not immune to it by any stretch of the imagination.

“It’s just as important for Bermuda companies as any other country around the world.”

Mr Oberholzer was speaking just before the start of a three-day series of events designed to highlight the risks of cyber crime, which will feature top speakers from overseas and Bermuda.

The keynote speaker at a conference on Thursday organised by the local arm of international cyber security group ISACA will be Jason Healey, the director of cyber statecraft initiative for the Atlantic Council and a former policy director at the White House, as well as a review board member of the DEF CON global hacker conference.

Mr Oberholzer added that Bermuda — because of its business links with the US — could be a tempting target for hackers aiming to get access to American company networks — for anti-big business ideological reasons as well as criminal ones.

He said: “The Target vulnerability which was exposed didn’t come from Target itself — it came from one of the company’s third-party vendors.

“There are lot of companies in the US which have dealings with Bermuda companies and some in the hacking community might feel Bermuda is the soft underbelly.

“Break through defences here, they gain access to the US market.”

And he added: “The perception that Bermuda is a tax haven might also mean that people may have an interest in trying to perform malicious acts in a Bermuda context.”

Mr Oberholzer said that he had been involved in setting up a new joint committee aimed at spreading threat intelligence across the Island.

He added: “We didn’t have a mechanism on the Island for sharing threat intelligence across the community. Although it’s still in its early stages, it’s an exciting initiative and puts us in a strong position to deal with these kind of threats in the future.”

Mr Oberholzer said that when the Shellshock bug — which potentially could hit hundreds of millions of computers around the world — surfaced earlier this month, the new body was able to offer advice.

He added: “Although we haven’t had any instances of this, as far as I’m aware, we now have a robust system in place where people can share best practices. As an Island, we’re well-placed to deal with events as they arise.

“Although it’s still in the early stages, it’s an exciting initiative and puts us in a strong position to deal with these kind of threats in the future.

“We need to make sure that, as a community of IT professionals, we’re doing what we can to make people more aware of the risks around cyber security.”

Tomorrow’s ISACA annual conference will be followed by an evening Tech Talk event focusing on computer crime and safeguards and on Friday a cyber security training session will be held at the KPMG HQ in Hamilton’s Par-la-Ville Road.

Mr Oberholzer said: “These three events together form a package about cyber security.”

He added: “Bermuda has a reputational risk — one, as a jurisdiction, secondly as companies and thirdly as individuals.

“If the wrong photograph gets out, it will impact people as individuals.

“Cyber crime has a massive impact in the business community but also has a massive impact on us as individuals.

“As individuals, we need to be aware of what’s going on. Every home has a PC and people do things like internet banking.

“They need to know how secure their information is and how they can protect themselves better.”

The ISACA conference will be held at the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club between 9am and 5pm tomorrow and will also feature speakers from top Bermuda companies and the Bermuda Police Service, as well as Mr Healey.

The cost is $275 for ISACA members and $295 for non-members, with tea, coffee and lunch included.

The TechTalk cyber security event will be held at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club between 5.30pm and 7.30pm tomorrow. The Cyber Security training session will be held at KPMG from 9am to noon on Friday. Registration for both events is free. To book slots at all three events, contact rsvp@isacabermuda.com.