Businesses in the Philippines increased their cybersecurity budget last year due to increasing digitalization and to comply with stricter data privacy measures, according to the latest report of global cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks (PANW).
In a virtual press briefing, PANW unveiled its 2023 State of Cybersecurity Asean report which showed that the Philippines, alongside Malaysia, experienced the highest number of disruptive attacks across Asean. In the past year, 29 percent of local organizations experienced a 50 percent or more increase in incidents.
Cybersecurity continues to be a top priority for businesses in the Philippines. Similar to last year, 56 percent of local organizations said cybersecurity is discussed at a board level monthly.
The report said 68 percent of Filipino businesses have increased their cybersecurity budget due to increasing digitalization (53 percent) and adapting to new or changing regulations that require stricter data privacy measures (48 percent).
Among the top three concerns of Filipino organization are malware (66 percent), spear phishing attacks (63 percent) and password attacks (56 percent).
With a growing reliance on cloud-based services and applications, local businesses said they are most challenged in cybersecurity because of increased digital transactions, which expose them to more cyber risks (50 percent), risks from personal devices or home networks accessing corporate networks (49 percent) and the need to procure a broader range of cybersecurity solutions (44 percent).
Despite the challenges, Filipino organizations are generally confident in their security measures, with 90 percent of local organizations confident in their adopted security measures.
Compared to large organizations, small and medium-sized organizations feel relatively less confident in coping with cybersecurity challenges, due to constrained cybersecurity budgets and relatively weaker in-house cybersecurity talent.
“It is great to see the confidence across Asean and in the Philippines in their security measures. This indicates that businesses continue to build resilience against evolving cyber-attacks. However, confidence must be coupled with caution. Taking a proactive approach to cybersecurity is the need of the hour, which will need an all-hands-on-deck initiative with active participation from everyone within the organization,” said Oscar Visaya, PANW country manager for the Philippines.
To combat evolving threats in the past year, the report showed that 44 percent of Filipino organizations implemented cloud security adoption, 44 percent did identity and access management, and 41 percent had a security orchestration, automation and response strategy.
Also, 75 percent of organizations with operational technology (OT), including essential services, have embraced unified information technology/OT cybersecurity teams to enhance their security posture and facilitate quicker responses, the report said.
Regionally, artificial intelligence (AI) integration is the top technology business across Southeast Asia, particularly those in the telco, tech and communications industries.
This reflects the approach of Filipino organizations, wherein 54 percent are looking into AI integration, including machine learning, predictive analytics, voice recognition and sentiment analytics, in the next one to two years.
