CYBERSECURITY SOLUTIONS company Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. said on Wednesday that in the last six months, organizations in the Philippines experienced an average of 4,003 attacks per week, well above the Asia-Pacific average of 2,870.
“Cyberattacks in the Philippines are escalating both in frequency and sophistication, placing immense pressure on organizations to stay ahead of evolving threats,” Teong Eng Guan, regional director of Southeast Asia & Korea at Check Point Software Technologies, said in a statement.
The report found that the exposure of sensitive data such as usernames, passwords, and encryption keys, has happened to 70% of Philippine organizations, with businesses “particularly susceptible to exploitation.”
The National Privacy Commission (NPC) said the government logged 55 instances of data breaches between January and August. In addition, 21 incidents were reported in education and financial services organizations, while 17 incidents were reported by manpower agencies.
On its website, the NPC highlighted malicious attacks, human error, and the combination of both as the top three causes of data breaches in the first eight months of the year.
According to the commission, 115 reports were classified as malicious attacks, including hacking the cloud, databases, e-mail accounts, infrastructure, and websites.
Human error cases involved undertrained staff, loss of equipment/documents, and misdelivered documents.
“As personal data breaches and security incidents come with digitalization, fortification of our cyber defenses and ensuring that our personal data and sensitive personal data is protected should be the top priority,” it said. — Almira Louise S. Martinez