COLLABORATION between the public and the private sectors is needed to effectively respond to cyberthreats and prop up consumer confidence, the chief executive officer of Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) said.
“This collaborative effort of our government and the private sector are crucial in creating a secure and resilient cyber environment for everybody. It is only through our collective effort that we can hope to build a robust defense against cyberthreats,” BPI Chief Executive Officer Jose Teodoro K. Limcaoco said in a speech on Wednesday.
Assistant Secretary Amanda Marie F. Nograles of the Department of Trade and Industry’s Consumer Protection Group urged the private sector to help the government in minimizing the impact of cyberattacks.
She added that the proliferation of fraud and scams was not good for consumer confidence, worsening the business environment.
“It’s a shared mission between the private sector and the government because we need to work together to combat all of these illicit activities,” she said.
DICT Assistant Secretary for Legal Affairs Renato A. Paraiso said in a panel discussion that the biggest cybersecurity is the hacking of systems operated by the government and the private sector.
“The only difference is in the public sector we are forced to admit that we are being attacked, while in the private sector, I know there’s a risk of reputational damage which you are trying to prevent,” he said.
USAID BEACON Cybersecurity Lead Engineer Pierre Tito Galla called for the training of more programmers and cybersecurity workers, citing as a model the government’s effort to address the shortage of healthcare workers.
“We learned that to be able to maintain the number of healthcare workers in a country. We can’t hold them back, but rather (should) widen the pipeline,” he said.
“What we did in the past was when we realized that our nurses were leaving the country was we encouraged the training of more nurses,” he added.
Asian Institute of Management Professor Philip Teow Huat Kwa called for measures to make the country more attractive for foreign workers to plug the gap in cybersecurity know-how.
He added that emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) should be taught more widely in schools.
“It is important for educational institutions to actually teach the use of AI to the students, but use it in an ethical manner,” he said.
The DICT’s Mr. Paraiso said laws should also be amended to restructure government positions that have become outdated and to formally educate government employees on the threat, Mr. Paraiso said.
“There are positions in government that are very antiquated. You still have programmers and encoders in government. We have to work together to update this and make it conducive and make them more attractive to foreigners,” he said.
He noted that government workers should be upskilled to keep up with the private sector. — Aaron Michael C. Sy
