Cybersecurity officers to be required in all gov’t agencies

All government agencies may soon be required to bolster their cybersecurity measures in line with evolving and growing cyberthreats.

Jose Carlos Reyes, director of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), told The

STAR that a draft proposal mandating all government agencies to hire a cybersecurity officer has been submitted to Malacañang.

“An executive order from the President will be out, hopefully within the next few months, stipulating that all national government agencies, including the local governments, must have their own cybersecurity officers. We will be training them,” Reyes said.

“So we want to have it signed by the President so that it will become an executive order, so that it will have more teeth,” he said.

Reyes said the goal is to require all organizations in the country, including the private sector, to have cybersecurity officers, similar to the directive of appointing a data protection officer under the Data Privacy Act of 2012.

“Under the Data Privacy Act, they require all organizations to have data protection officers. Now with cybersecurity, we’re trying to pattern it in a way that there will also be a cybersecurity officer in each organization,” he said.

“Data protection officer and cybersecurity officer are different. Data privacy officer deals with breaches in terms of personal identifiable information like for example your name, birthday, address. Cybersecurity is much more on breaches or hacking of systems, that is where we come in. It has nothing to do with personal identifiable information,” Reyes said.

Reyes said while the current draft covers only government agencies, the goal is also to include the private sector in the future.

“There is still more work to do in including companies because some have reservations. But yes, there’s a plan to require them also, probably next year we can work on that,” he said.

“Cybersecurity is really needed in all sectors of our society,” Reyes said.