American Companies Are Blacklisting Guyanese IP Ranges Over Possible Cybersecurity Threats

Residents of Guyana who rely on the Internet to handle online banking and online payment processing with a number of U.S. banks and payment gateways may soon be unable to do so after several U.S.-based payment processors have decided to blacklist a number of Internet protocol (IP) ranges that are being used by Guyanese to handle online transactions and general Internet usage.

The Guyana Guardian was reliably informed that the IP blocking is occurring because several of the IP addresses that are owned by local telecommunications company GTT were discovered to be involved, possibly inadvertently, in large-scale spamming and other Internet security incidents that can compromise the security of a company’s online systems.

As such, several U.S. companies including PayPal, Bank of America and Google Pay have already implemented an outright ban on several GTT-owned IP ranges, thus making it almost impossible for persons to access any online payment system that is operated by those American companies.

Several other U.S., Canadian and UK companies also are expected to automatically add the blacklisted Guyana IP ranges to their cybersecurity watch lists.

While the banning of the Guyanese IP ranges will have a negative impact on hundreds of Guyanese households and businesses, Michael Denny, a former cybersecurity expert at Microsoft, told the Guyana Guardian that the actions taken by the U.S. companies are generally automatic and are often reversed once certain security elements are addressed and reported.