THE Philippine government should invest in cybersecurity so that the country can remain competitive and maintain growth, a data expert said.
During the DevCon PRO Summit 2023 on Friday, Oct. 20, technology and data analyst Dominic Ligot said aside from the possible financial losses through hacking, cyberattacks may also affect investor confidence.
“Dapat ma-connect ‘yung relationship ng cybersecurity at saka business value. Or kung sa country, ‘yung cybersecurity at (gross domestic product) natin. Parang hindi siya nako-connect. Imagine mo kung mawalan ng tiwala sa atin ang mga (business process outsourcing companies), mag-aalisin mga ‘yan,” he said.
He said the recent victims of cyberattacks are government sites that store private data, such as PhilHealth and the Philippine Statistics Authority.
DevCon founder and president Winston Damarillo, meanwhile, said that Filipinos are talented but appreciation for cybersecurity, both in the government and the private sector, must be improved.
“What we have is the lack of cybersecurity posture in companies. In other words, companies don’t care enough about cybersecurity yet in the Philippines,” Damarillo said.
This is why education is relevant, Ligot said.
“Awareness natin about cybersecurity, awareness natin about artificial intelligence mababa. Hindi naman dahil kulang ‘yung talent. ‘Yung mga marunong, they know it. Pero ‘yung decision maker mo in any company, decision maker mo in any public office or even startups, kulang na kulang,” he said.
Ruel Nopal, who heads the engineering unit of Prosperna, an e-commerce software company, said another problem is that developers are too focused on apps, software and programs, but some of them tend to completely forget about cybersecurity features.
He said security features must be integrated into the system from the start, and not just an add-on.
“Kulang knowledge natin in terms of how secure our applications, the network. Naka-focus kasi ngayon, especially mga graduates natin, is codes, design, but there is no security involved,” he said.
Nopal said developers and other officials of the government and private companies should be educated on cyber issues.
Tom Fisher, the former Chief Technology Officer of eBay, who also attended the conference, agreed.
“The best way to combat these types of activities [cyber attacks] was [to] bring in the best and brightest together and share practical experience. We trained people who were engineers to do work on cybersecurity as well,” recounted Fisher who also held leadership positions in Qualcomm and SAP. (ABS-CBN News)
