Israel wants to bring more cybersecurity players ‘to the table’ in PH

Israel is seeking to expand its cybersecurity presence in the Philippines, saying the latter is one of the most "attacked" countries in Southeast Asia.

“One of the sectors that we identified there as very relevant and important for relationships was definitely the cybersecurity sector. I think that the cybersecurity sector, when we talk about the Israel-Philippine relationship, enjoys both the demand from the Philippine side, because we are well known for very advanced, proven cybersecurity solutions,” Israeli Economic Counsellor Ofek Venecianer said at an event in Bonifacio Global City on Thursday.

She said further cybersecurity partnerships and agreements are now underway between Israel and the Philippines with the shared goal of improving the Philippines’ cybersecurity.

“I think this is a great momentum that we're trying, of course, to leverage and bring to the table more players from the Philippines side and from the Israeli side as well,” she added.

Israeli Ambassador Dana Kursh said there was a need to improve the country’s knowledge, technologies, and capabilities due to technology’s high involvement in the war.

“Cybersecurity is a huge and grave threat because it can impact us easily… It is something that is relevant to this war and we can learn from it and we can exchange best practices to utilize. We can be either defensive or offensive,” she said.

“Cybersecurity is the next war. It’s the war today… I don't want cyber security or any other innovative tool to be against someone. I want it to be for something. So, we have to find ways to think together and to prepare for not the next future, but the future is now to see how we protect our citizens, both from ballistic missiles and from hackers that want to make harm for us and for the next generation of us,” she added.

In February, the Philippine government said that it had already been making significant moves to further strengthen the country’s cyber landscape through partnerships with other countries like Japan and Canada.

In December, a group of cybersecurity professionals also made a call to the government to bolster the country’s cybersecurity framework.

They noted there were “long overdue” reforms needed to address vulnerabilities caused by “years of underinvestment, lack of coordination, and misplaced priorities.”

In a message to GMA News Online, the Department of Information and Technology (DICT) said that they continue working on strengthening the Philippines' cybersecurity, which includes cooperation with countries like Israel.

“DICT and CICC continue to partner with the Israeli Government through their embassy to find better and more advanced tools and methods to combat cyber threats. Most specially after the Middle East crisis. No less than the President directed [the] DICT to ensure that the country has a strong cyber defense posture,” said DICT Secretary Henry Aguda.

GMA News Online has also reached out to the National Intelligence Coordination Agency (NICA) for comment on the matter. 

Middle East war

Israel, along with the US, initiated the current escalation in the Middle East by conducting airstrikes on Iran that have killed its supreme leader and thousands of civilians, including a school full of children.

Venecianer said that the current efforts on cybersecurity will help in developing attacks and strategies for the war.

“I think that the war will give us, you know, it's a different scale of attacks that Israel is exploring, different types of attacks, sometimes, you know, they develop the way that they attack and try, you know… It can be infrastructures, hospitals, of course, water, electricity part of infrastructure, banks. It's really, it's very diverse. So I think in terms of the form of the attack and the scale of the attack,” she said.

Kursh said that it was important to become educated on identifying reliable sources to avoid misleading information online, especially as part of the war has since migrated to online spaces.

“It has to be not to be hijacked by this war that is really the war of words that is happening online… We have been blessed with social media. It's a blessing. AI and other technologies that provide us, give us more and more information, is a blessing, but it's also a blessing with a twist,” she said.

“It’s a bombardment of information. How do you assess and gather the information that will be beneficial and that will be reliable for you?” she added. — BM/VBL, GMA Integrated News