UNITED AGAINST CYBER THREATS. Officers and Board Members of the ASEAN-Japan Cybersecurity Community Alliance (AJCCA) attend the 2nd ASEAN-Japan Cybersecurity Working Group Meeting on Wednesday (May 22, 2024) in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The discussions focused on prospects for more cybersecurity partnerships and joint initiatives in the region with their government counterparts in ASEAN. (Photo courtesy of Sam Jacoba)
MANILA – Cybersecurity and data protection professionals representing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Japan on Wednesday urged concerned government and private sector organizations to work together against cyber menaces that are threatening the region’s Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) and its citizens’ personal information.
The call for stronger and collaborative public-private partnerships (PPP) was made amid the heating up of territorial disputes in the region that coincides with a rise in the number of advanced persistent threats (APTs) supposedly targeting government agencies and private companies in the ASEAN zone.
During the ASEAN-Japan Cybersecurity Technical Working Group joint meeting in Siem Reap, Cambodia, delegates called for the creation of "responsive and proactive initiatives" that will protect the Asia region from global and local cyber threats.
The Philippines is represented in the summit by Philippine Computer Emergency Response Team (PH-CERT) and the National Association of Data Protection Officers of the Philippines (NADPOP).
In a message to the Philippine News Agency, PH-CERT president Lito Averia said a “whole-of-Asia and whole-of-society approach” is necessary to fight cyber threats in the region.
He said this must be “orchestrated among government and private sector leaders in ASEAN and Japan, along with other countries in the region.”
“Asian countries face the same threats, and all countries attending confirmed that their respective government’s digital infrastructure along with Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) are also being attacked constantly by international and even local threat actors,” he added.
Meanwhile, NADPOP founding president Sam Jacoba said the increasing cyberattacks on government digital ecosystems and CII call for nations in the Asia region to establish concrete solutions.
Among the solutions he proposes is the establishment of an Information Exchange Network that will serve as “a cyber-weather station that will receive, verify, then send out threat alerts to everyone that will impacted in the region.”
“ASEAN countries now feel the urgency to work together more efficiently to combat cyber threats. With similar experiences across the region, a unified approach and strategic framework to fight threat actors is emerging,” Jacoba told the PNA in a phone conversation.
Recently, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) reported that its personnel successfully defeated a series of "brute force" cyberattacks on its mailboxes, as well as on several government offices, including President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s official website and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration’s (OWWA) website.
DICT Undersecretary for Cybersecurity Jeffery Ian Dy traced the origin of the attack to China United Network Communications Group (China Unicom), a Chinese state-owned telecommunications company. (PNA)
