DICT vows to combat rising cyberespionage
Amid fears of Chinese espionage through technology infrastructure, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) assured that the Philippines has remained “overly cautious” over potential cyberthreats, making sure that systems are in place to monitor its networks.
DICT Secretary Ivan Uy, on the sidelines of an event in Makati on Tuesday, told the Inquirer they have means to detect irregular flow of data at its servers.
In addition, Uy said the agency conducts training to strengthen knowledge capacity and also upgrades software to reduce vulnerabilities.
“We always err on [the side of] overly cautious, especially in dealing with protection of our infrastructure,” he said.
Uy, however, stressed that cybersecurity threats loom regardless of which country a particular technology originates from, noting that even Western countries that were not using Chinese hardware still have to deal with cyberattacks.
Beyond the hardware, the DICT chief said that people could be the “weakest link” in an organization as cybercriminals target certain individuals to breach networks. This can be done through phishing attacks launched via emails or text messages, tricking individuals into giving out personal and corporate information. After DITO Telecommunity won the bid to become the country’s third telco player in 2018, there have been concerns about Chinese espionage as the entity running it includes state-owned China Telecom. The latter owns a 40-percent stake in DITO.
DITO previously assured that its facilities would not be used as a tool for spying, stressing that the telco is a “Filipino company” and would “never allow any espionage or anything that will be negative to our national security.”The issue was brought up last year when Sen. Raffy Tulfo advised the Armed Forces of the Philippines to dismantle DITO facilities at military camps for fear of espionage.
Apart from this, the telco players are also using Chinese technology in the rollout of 5G services in the country.Sami Khoury, head of Canadian Center for Cyber Security, told reporters on Tuesday that cyberespionage has been gaining ground. “Traditional espionage is still around and some have moved into the cyber landscape. We need to recognize that it is a real threat. Some of it is directed towards the government,” he explained.
Other cyberattacks, Khoury noted, target the private sector to steal intellectual property. INQ
