Philippines told to make cybersecurity a priority

The Philippines is urged to make cybersecurity as one of its top priorities, as cyber threats are constantly evolving.

Kaspersky’s findings suggested that a critical move towards achieving cyber-resiliency would potentially support the growth of local businesses, foster current digital opportunities, and mitigate dangerous risks to the country’s economy.

Just like its neighbors in Southeast Asia (SEA), the past five years saw the country consistently hit by various cyber threats ranging from web attacks, remote desktop protocol (RDP) attacks, and mobile malware.

Data from Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) show that web threat attempts against Filipino users of Kaspersky software grew 432.75 percent from 9,487,775 in 2017 to 50,544,908 in 2021. In Kaspersky’s global ranking of most attacked countries, the Philippines climbed from the 30th spot to 4th place in just five years.

With the pandemic-borne shift towards remote working, the overall RDP attacks versus local businesses rose by 141% from 2019 (2,549,698) to 2021 (6,150,891). RDP enables computers running Windows on the same corporate network to be linked together and accessed remotely, even when employees are at home.

Mobile malware attacks may have dropped sharply in the Philippines from 2019 to 2021 by 69 percent but according to Kaspersky, there are indications that Trojans are injected into third-party ad modules and new

Trojans are being discovered —proof that cybercriminals have become creative and sophisticated in their approach.

As far as the local government is concerned, legal policies and regulatory frameworks on cybersecurity have already been laid out and are currently in place. Kaspersky executives urge the state to collaborate with its neighbors and private companies to further build its cyber-resiliency.

“Looking at the Philippines’ unique cybersecurity landscape and how it is dealing with cyberattacks, it appears that the country is now in the intermediate stage of cybersecurity readiness. Intermediate-level countries are those that have identified cyberattacks as areas they need to look into and have attempted to make some inroads. The goal is to have the country move to the Advanced stage where we hope to see it doing more in terms of development,” said Genie Gan, Head of Public Affairs and Government Relations for Asia Pacific & Middle East, Turkey and Africa at Kaspersky.

Gan said that while the cybersecurity landscape in the Philippines is distinct from the rest of SEA, it is still interconnected with its regional neighbors in so many ways.

“This is why we encourage the government regulators to begin boosting its cyber capacity-building and cooperation efforts. These two are basically the building blocks of cybersecurity,” she said.

Gan recommended the following specific action steps for the Philippines’ cybersecurity; Continuous promotion of security awareness and digital education for its more than 76 million users; Growing its pool of cybersecurity talents; Publicprivate partnerships; Regional and international cooperation between countries and industries.

From Kaspersky’s experience, an effective formula includes constant improvement of security awareness. This includes engagement with the wider cybersecurity community and stakeholders including cybersecurity providers to validate and verify the trustworthiness of their products, internal processes and businesses — an important pillar held by Kaspersky and implemented within the overall framework of its pioneering Global Transparency Initiative (GTI).