The Philippines recorded more than 200,000 cyberattacks on telecommunications infrastructures daily amid the push for a law that reduces the oversight powers of regulatory bodies on telco operations and encourages entry of new telcos.
Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary Jeffrey Ian Dy said in a recent press conference by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) that telecom companies are one of the prime targets of the 2 million cyberattacks being recorded daily by the National Security Operations Center.
Dy said the prime targets of the attacks are government sites, which several stakeholders worry would worsen if telco restrictions would be relaxed once Senate Bill 2699 or the Konektadong Pinoy Act is enacted into law.
“Fifty percent target government, 30 percent target academe… 10 percent target the telecommunications industry, the remaining 10 percent is usually banking, health sectors,” Dy said during the conference.
Consumer advocacy network CitizenWatch Philippines said that SB 2699, if passed, would eliminate the need for a congressional franchise for telecommunication companies, which “diminishes” the regulatory powers of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) into mere oversight.
The bill will also strip the NTC of its oversight functions and reduce it to a mere registrar, which could be detrimental to consumers and the country’s telco space as a whole, CitizenWatch said.
“We implore our lawmakers to take a second look at how, in our pursuit of connectivity, we may be opening ourselves up to abuses from entities that have malicious intent and whose goals may be different from what the law claims it wants,” Stratbase ADR Institute said in a statement.
According to cyber intelligence company CYFIRMA, the Philippines is a prime target for cyber espionage activities due to a lack of cybersecurity awareness and underdeveloped cybersecurity infrastructure, especially with the rising tension in the region.
Intelligent global network Cloudflare recorded an average of five billion cyberattacks per day in the Philippines in the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 28 percent compared to the prior quarter.
Several key stakeholders from private and government institutions of the country’s cyber security space are also ramping up efforts to enhance the country’s defenses under an alliance dubbed PROTECTA Pilipinas.
Meanwhile, Globe Telecom also invested around $90 million to tighten its cyber security measures amid the continuous rise of cyberattacks in the Philippines.
The Konektadong Pinoy bill is lodged at the Senate and awaits further deliberations and actions.
