Colombia’s crime and violence situation seems to be worsening as the current administration of Ivan Duque refuses to implement the peace accords signed under the previous administration of Juan Manuel Santos. The crime wave that includes record cocaine production, a rash of assassinations of social and community leaders, and general insecurity seems to have multiple factors from a government unwillingness to impose order and security in rural areas, decreased public trust in institutions, economic challenges due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, and a Venezuelan refugee crisis.

The US State department has issued a bulletin advising US citizens and nationals to “Reconsider travel to Colombia due to COVID-19 and to exercise increased caution in Colombia due to crime, terrorism and kidnapping. The department has invited the public to read the Department of State’s COVID-19 page before planning any international travel.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a Level 3 Travel Health Notice for Colombia due to COVID-19.

Colombia has lifted stay at home orders and resumed some transportation and business operations though this weekend, several areas such as the department of Antioquia, home to Colombia’s second largest city of Medellín has imposed new restrictions this weekend cancelling Halloween trick-or-treating, banning alcohol sales until next Tuesday, and imposing a night-time curfew between 10pm and 6am even in small rural towns throughout the department.

The US State Department says:

Do Not Travel to:

• Arauca, Cauca (except Popayan), Chocó (except Nuquí), Nariño, and Norte de Santander (except Cucuta) departments due to crime and terrorism.

Reconsider Travel to:

• Several departments throughout the country due to crime and terrorism.

Country Summary: Violent crime, such as homicide, assault, and armed robbery, is common. Organized criminal activities, such as extortion, robbery, and kidnapping for ransom, are widespread.

While the Colombian government signed a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) terrorist group, some dissident groups refuse to demobilize.

The National Liberation Army (ELN) terrorist organization continues plotting possible attacks in Colombia. They may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets/shopping malls, local government facilities, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, major sporting and cultural events, educational institutions, airports, and other public areas.

U.S. government personnel are prohibited from traveling freely throughout Colombia for security reasons.

Read the country information page.

According to the State Department, If you decide to travel to Colombia:

• See the S. Embassy’s web page regarding COVID-19.
• Visit the CDC’s webpage on Travel and COVID-19.
• Be aware of your surroundings.
• Monitor local media for breaking events and adjust your plans based on new information.
• Enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP)to receive Alerts and make it easier to locate you in an emergency.
• Follow the Department of State on Facebookand Twitter.
• Review the Crime and Safety Reportsfor Colombia.
• S. citizens who travel abroad should always have a contingency plan for emergency situations. Review the Traveler’s Checklist.

Arauca, Cauca, Chocó, Nariño and Norte de Santander Departments – Do Not Travel

Violent crime, including armed robbery and homicide is widespread.

Terrorist groups are active in some parts.

The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens as U.S. government personnel cannot travel to these areas due to security concerns.

Visit the State Department website for Travel to High-Risk Areas.

Several Departments throughout the Country – Reconsider Travel

Reconsider Travel to:

• Antioquia department north of Medellin
• Caquetá department
• Casanare department
• Cesar department outside of Valledupar
• Cordoba department outside of Montería
• Guainía department
• Guaviare department
• Meta department
• Putumayo department
• Valle del Cauca department outside of Cali and Palmira area
• Vaupes department
• Vichada department

Violent crime, including armed robbery and homicide, is widespread.

The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens as U.S. government personnel cannot travel to these areas because of security restrictions and limited domestic travel options.

Visit our website for Travel to High-Risk Areas.

Assistance:

• U.S. Embassy Bogota, Colombia
  Tel. +57-1-275-2000
  acsbogota@state.gov
  https://co.usembassy.gov/
• U.S. Consular Agency, Barranquilla
  conagencybarranquilla@state.gov
• U.S. Department of State – Consular Affairs
  1-888-407-4747 or 1-202-501-4444
• Colombia Country Information
• Enroll in Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) to receive security updates
• Follow us on Facebook and Twitter

The project has already begun, with the U.S.-based data management company Level 3 leading the overhaul in a partnership with the public organization that will modernize and strengthen its computing infrastructure and implement new IT projects related to the Bizagi platform that is intended to help enterprises complete their “digital transformation.”

The need for change became clear about two years ago when CREMIL ran into the limitations of its computing capacity. At the time it maintained only one main computer center housed in the International Center Tequendama (CIT), which according to Level 3 “did not meet the international standards.”

So now the organizations are working together to migrate servers, assign new routing, and improve data security. While carrying out this work, according to Luis Carlos Guerrero, vice president of sales for Level 3 in Colombia, the company has also been working to ensure continuity of the current services.

It helped mitigate the risk with a contingency plan, for example, in addition to cloning the servers under the Windows platform and preparing virtual machines.

As the improvements are finalized, the organization’s data is coming within the Level 3 data center in Bogotá. “CREMIL can have the peace of mind that its computerized operations are secure and located in one of the most robust data centers,” said Carlos.

Globally, the network of Level 3, which is headquartered in Bloomfield, Colorado, reaches more than 200,000 miles of fiber-optic cables throughout 60 countries and offers a “global IP backbone capacity” of more than 42 terabits per second (tbps), according to the company.

The country head of the telecommunications company and network provider was joined by Loren Moss, executive editor of Finance Colombia, to talk about the growth of connectivity in Colombia. While Guerrero expects growth in all aspects of the private sector, they specifically discuss how the demand is increasing in the financial sector and the need for greater security.

The following conversation, during the recent Asobancaria banking conference in Colombia, highlights the growth of the digital world and why Level 3 decided to expand its network by adding a cable on the Pacific coast of the nation.

Loren Moss: So earlier this year in Bogotá, I was at an event and learned you have an alliance with Amazon.

Luis Carlos Guerrero: Yes, we see that the future will be one based on the cloud in terms of processing, computing, storage, and the rest and those services — all supported by very good connectivity. So we’re betting on those clients.

There are clouds of different kinds, so concepts appear — like Office 365, for example — and clients need a good, quality response for their users who are far away from those clouds. So what we do is come to agreements with Microsoft, with Amazon, with Google, with IBM, and with others, and we make a direct connection from their public clouds to our clients all over the world. That improves the user experience very much.

Let me explain: If a client has Office 365 for corporate, his users would have to go to internet to get to that content and those applications. With us, what we do is make a direct connection from his offices — wherever they are, whether in Medellín, Bogotá, or anywhere in the world — to Microsoft’s cloud. The user experience improves very much.

That’s what we do as well with Amazon. That’s the first agreement we have made with these companies that have public clouds.

Loren Moss: Interesting. You at Level 3 have a data center here in Bogotá and elsewhere in Colombia, correct?

Luis Carlos Guerrero: Yeah, we have a data center on 170th Street in Bogota, we have another data center in Bogota, and we have a data center in Cali.

Loren Moss: And you already have several fiber-optic connections to the “backbone” of the internet as they say. What is the connectivity like here in Colombia?

Luis Carlos Guerrero: I think the connectivity in Colombia is pretty good, and the future looks good. The majority of cables, with the exception of ours, are in the Caribbean.

The Caribbean is not an ocean, it is a sea of shallow waters where smuggled goods go in and out. So those cables are exposed to the risk of being broken by a falling anchor, or when they’re raising it, getting tangled up and broken. It has happened in the past in Costa Rica.

In Colombia, because the waters are shallow, the ships don’t get into the ports but rather stay far offshore. So we decided several years ago that it was worth the trouble to have an alternative without that risk on the Pacific coast. Our cable there goes down to a depth of 3,400 meters.

Loren Moss: Wow! That’s a big difference. A super-big difference!

Luis Carlos Guerrero: All problems are avoided. It gives us an enormous peace of mind and security of connection for the different uses that both businesspeople and the man-in-the-street require.

We decided that it should be Cali, an important city in Colombia with an opening to the Pacific. That cable, which comes from Panama, comes in close to Buenaventura. And it comes in to Cali, it goes on to Lima, it goes into Chile, it crosses the mountain range into Argentina, it goes into Brazil twice, and comes back out again in the Atlantic towards the United States. In Panama, it goes in towards Miami on one side, and it goes towards the Pacific and on to California.

Colombia is a becoming more and more of a “multilatina” country. So the connectivity with Chile is perfect. The connectivity with Peru is great. There is an enormous number of transactions between those countries, but also with Central America. The cable also goes to Costa Rica.

Loren Moss: How do you find the demand for connectivity, especially in the financial sector here in Colombia? What is growth like?

Luis Carlos Guerrero: Modern companies make us depend more on technology and less on people. Banks, in one way or another, now talk about digital banking, digitalization of the banking industry, fewer offices attending to people and more services online. There is more automation.

As far as that is happening, it is in our favor. It is in our favor because that means more data by means of the network. That means better connectivity is needed between the branch offices of a bank and its head offices where the processing capacities are. That means giving wider bandwidth to the branches, and that means having more automatic teller machines.

Nowadays, businessmen are aware that connectivity, good communications, computing capacities, and applications — rather than being an expense — are a way of saving money. Because the procedures are simpler and fewer people involved. There is more automation, and that means the client does his transactions without needing almost anybody.

Loren Moss: We have seen many high-profile cyberattacks of late. There was the worldwide ransomware attack. We have seen the interbank system SWIFT hacked or violated several times. What is the demand for connectivity providers like Level 3 with security? What solutions or innovations does Level 3 offer? If I’m a bank and a Level 3 client, how can you help us to better protect our systems that run through the Level 3 network?

Luis Carlos Guerrero: OK. Two concepts. One, the companies see that these facts are unfortunately getting more and more important day by day. So for years now, we have had a plan to make sure that the backbone of the company is able to support all of that.

Second, the attacks are not so frequent in Latin America. We have seen them in Ecuador, we have seen them in Colombia, and our technologies operate correctly. But toward the future, we have plans for much more important equipment, both because both the clients’ traffic requires it and because we have a security area that allows us to offer security services, and our knowledge and our network capacity.

For example, often the “bad guys,” as I call them — the hackers — set out to do what they call a “synchronized attack” on a financial or commercial entity’s network. They often coordinate it on the worst possible dates, usually on a Friday, at the end of the month, or on that entity’s busiest traffic in transactions. They usually start at 9:00 or 10:00 am in the morning and the attack lasts until 6:00 in the afternoon.

So, with the network capacity that we have, can detect that attack. Those attacks come from all over the world. If they came from just one place, it would be very easy to block them at their origin. But since they come from so many places and there is just one network, we detect the attack and we confirm it with the client that it’s not a promotion, for example, or something like that.

Loren Moss: Not, like, unusual traffic from a Black Friday deal or something like that?

Luis Carlos Guerrero: Right. We confirm that with the client. And then, all that traffic that is coming in, we divert it to some cleansing points. We clean it up and we hand over to the client the traffic that they should be getting.

Loren Moss: Traffic analysis. Impressive. Generally, Level 3 is a worldwide, global company — one of the biggest and oldest companies that offers these services. What is the importance of a country like Colombia for a worldwide company like Level 3?

Luis Carlos Guerrero: Level 3 has worldwide coverage. We have nine operations on Latin America, including Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Venezuela. And all those contribute, first of all, to the concept of a global network that we want to transmit to our corporate clients.

And second of all, we have had an excellent client base in Colombia for more than 20 years, since 1992. We have clients that have stayed with us for 25 years in Cali, in Medellín, in Bogotá, and on the coast. Clients that we have seen transform and grow. We have really worked very closely with them and our products have been evolving based on the needs that we feel they have.

The certification, which comes after a periodic review process, also endorses that the company is following the established managed services practices required by SAP, a German enterprise software provider.

The audit of the center, located in the neighborhood of Suba, was conducted by SAP professionals and looked at its compliance with processes including data availability, incident management, support, and customer relations.

The audit was performed in March, and the recertification is valid for two years, until March 31, 2019.

“This recertification underscores the quality of our data centers’ footprint, the solidity of our processes and products, and our level of professionalism,” said Gabriel del Campo, regional vice president of data centers and security for Level 3 Latin America. “Our customers can count on the certainty of knowing Level 3 is recognized in the region as a certified provider of IT infrastructure services for critical environments.”

The same SAP Hosting Partner recertification was also granted after audits of the company’s data centers in Peru and Chile. The company maintains data centers in both Lima and Santiago, the respective capitals of the the two South American nations.

In January, Level 3 launched another data center in the western city of Cali, a prime location near the Pacific coast. Situated nearby a subsea cable landing station that the company activated in 2015, the expansion has given the nation access to its vast cable network at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

“We decided to add this data center in Cali because it is the main urban and economic engine for southwest Colombia,” said Felipe Gómez, Level 3’s data center and security director for the Andes Region. “Level 3’s fiber optic cable runs undersea for 300 kilometers to the seaport city of Buenaventura on Colombia’s Pacific coast and then 154 kilometers over land to the city of Cali, making Valle del Cauca an important area for a data center.”

Finance Colombia Executive Editor Loren Moss recently caught up with Gómez to discuss the evolution of data security and the growing sophistication of hackers. The financial sector is one of the most-targeted industries, and he says banks and other firms in Latin America are lagging behind their U.S. counterparts in terms of investing in security solutions.

Felipe Gómez, Level 3’s data center and security director for the Andes Region, says that DDoS attacks continue to plague the financial services sector. (Credit: Loren Moss)

Finance Colombia: What does Level 3 offer in the field of security?

Felipe Gómez: We have a complete solution from the point of view of security services. We have all the solutions handed over as a service, very much focused on the whole subject of perimeters, like firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, web application firewalls, all of that.

But really we have evolved a lot because we think that security has to go a bit beyond the perimeter. The perimeter has been disappearing with the arrival of mobile devices. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have to protect the perimeter, but we have realized that what we have to protect, in addition to the perimeter, is the network.

We have 320,000 kilometers of fiber in the world, and the majority of the internet traffic in the world passes through those 320,000 kilometers. On that fiber network we have placed more than 1,000 devices that allow us to detect an enormous quantity of threats.

So when we realized all the quantity of threats that pass through the IP traffic in the world, what Level 3 did was to set up nine cleansing centers — called “scrubbing centers” — and in those scrubbing centers what we do is we clean the traffic of the clients who have contracted the cleansing service. With absolute security, when an attack comes along for a specific client, we are able to detect that attack, clean it up at the nearest cleansing center, and deliver clean traffic.

Security has evolved. It’s not only at the perimeter level. Nowadays we also have it set up at the network level.

Finance Colombia: Talking about the financial sector in the world, how have you seen the attacks evolving, especially the sophistication of hackers? What changes have we seen in the last two or three years?

Felipe Gómez: What we’re seeing is that the attacks nowadays are much more sophisticated than they were in the past. There are many more of them. I mean, we’re seeing an increase in attacks. We thought that attacks would decrease, but what we’re seeing is that 40% of the attacks that we detect on the IP network are now DDoS attacks, which is incredible. I mean, unknown attacks — attacks that are not configured and had not been seen by anyone — and we’re beginning to see that 40% of those attacks are DDoS attacks.

Finance Colombia: What are the challenges to financial institutions — talking about stock exchanges, insurance companies, banks — to protect their data and at the same time to make access experience easier to their consumer?

Felipe Gómez: Well, it’s not a secret for anybody that the financial sector is the one most attacked, and it’s the sector that consumes the most in the area of information security, precisely because there is a quantity of very valuable information about wealthy clients. And obviously the financial sector has more protection, and the more protection you give, the more sophisticated the attacks become.

That’s why we think that the financial sector should be a bit more alert to all these denial of service attacks. All of these network attacks that we’re seeing nowadays are affecting the financial system to a great degree.

Finance Colombia: Are there any differences in the attacks or degrees of sophistication from one part of the world to another?

Felipe Gómez: No, no. This is global. What you find in Russia, what you find in China, what you find in the United States, it’s the same as what you find in Colombia.

Finance Colombia: In the Caribbean and in the Americas, do the entities understand the importance of protecting their systems? Or is it still a challenge to explain and sell?

Felipe Gómez: No, they understand it perfectly. The financial sector is the most advanced sector in the whole information security system. Historically it is the one that has invested the most, and I think it will continue to be the one that invests the most.

However, obviously the companies in Latin America are a little different to the companies in the United States. Although the attacks are the same, the investments are not the same as to the quantity of money they invest in this area. They invest a lot but I think they’re still a bit far from investing what a U.S. company invests in the area of denial of service and in the area of sophisticated attacks to the network.

Why? I think it has a bit to do with legislation. In the United States, when a bank is attacked and client data is compromised, the bank has to notify its clients that it was attacked and the data was compromised. That kind of legislation doesn’t exist in Latin America. Since that kind of legislation doesn’t exist, even if the banks are attacked and the data is compromised, they don’t have to inform clients that the data was compromised.

That makes a big difference in the investments that they make. Because when I have to tell the clients that the information was vulnerable, I’m putting myself at risk. When I don’t have to tell them that the information was compromised, I’m not taking a risk with the client. That makes a big difference.

Demand for connectivity and network services in Colombia and Latin America is rising. Frost & Sullivan estimates the Latin American fixed broadband services market will grow at a rate of 12.4% to reach 90.8 million connections in 2018. At launch, Level 3´s undersea system has a total installed capacity of eight terabits of which 400-gigabits are already available, according to the carrier.

Hector Alonso, regional president of Latin America for Level 3

“This expanded undersea cable system connection represents Level 3’s commitment to meeting the increasing demand for network services in Latin America,” said Hector Alonso, regional president of Latin America for Level 3. “As part of Level 3’s South American Crossing (SAC) system, the cable connects the six major economies in Latin America providing customers a secure, reliable and redundant way to access our global footprint.”

With the additional connectivity, Colombia should be able to transmit data and mobile communications more quickly to key cities throughout the Americas, such as Los Angeles, Miami and New York, U.S.; Mexico City, Mexico; Santiago, Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina and São Paulo, Brazil. In turn, these cities will have greater connectivity to seven of the main cities in Colombia: Bogotá, Medellin, Cali, Ibague, Manizales, Pereira, Armenia and Popayan. The new route also provides enhanced connectivity and route diversity to cities in Asia and Europe.

Level 3 builds, operates and maintains a global communications network with extensive fiber miles in 60 countries across 3 continents. The company owns more than 180,000 kilometers (110,000 miles) of intercity routes, 103,000 km (64,000 miles) of metro routes and 53,000 km (33,000 miles) of undersea routes.

Felipe Gómez Jaramillo is Level 3’s Data Center and Security Director for Colombia

“We decided to add this data center in Cali because it is the main urban and economic engine for Southwest Colombia. Level 3’s fiber optic cable runs undersea for 300 kilometers to the seaport city of Buenaventura on Colombia’s Pacific coast and then 154 kilometers over land to the city of Cali making Valle del Cauca an important city for a data center,” said Felipe Gómez Jaramillo, the Data Center and Security Director for Level 3 Colombia.

Level 3 operates 17 data centers in 14 key cities and business centers in Latin America, including two Premier Elite data centers in Bogotá. Level 3 operates more than 350 data centers worldwide, divided into Premier Elite, Premier Select and Premier facilities.

Cali Data Center Facts:

• The new data center meets all of Level 3’s highest “Premier Elite” data center standards
• The Cali data center will connect to Level 3’s global network, with service available in approximately 500 markets in 60 countries.
• It will offer customers in Valle del Cauca access to Level 3 Cloud Connect Solutions, with private network access to Level 3’s cloud services.
• The data center is located near the Colombian Pacific coast, where Level 3 activated a subsea cable landing station in 2015.
• Dual-mode secured access systems are available to address security and compliance requirements.

Cali Data Center & Felipe Gomez photos courtesy of Level 3 Communications