There had been twice as much ransomware incidence across the Philippines the past year, with more than half of enterprises ranking them at the top of their concerns in 2023, the cybersecurity firm Fortinet said,
Rashish Pandey, vice president for marketing and communications at Fortinet, said ransomware and phishing proved the most predominant threats to the operation of enterprises last year, with 56 percent of their number reporting twice the increase as had been noted in 2022.
“Phishing and malware were the primary attack vectors. Other significant vectors include social engineering attacks, insider threat and IOT (internet of things) vulnerabilities,” he told a Philippine audience via conference call.
Ransomware captures a victim’s files, data, systems and even devices and render them inaccessible pending the payment of huge amounts of ransom. Some organizations have been reported to have paid but their files and data were erased just the same.
The other top five threats to secure online operations in the country include unpatched vulnerabilities, identity theft and insider threats. These were uncovered by a Fortinet-commissioned survey seeking to gather insights into the security operations landscape against a background of rising artificial intelligence or AI use and automated processes.
That survey found that 82 percent of organizations believe that remote or off-site work has led to an increase in insider threat incidence.
Insufficient training, lack of employee care and inadequate communication contribute to the surge and thus the need to address the human factor in cybersecurity keeping.
The same survey also found that half of businesses or organizations have dedicated information technology assets for security teams which multiplies the challenges organizations face in boosting their security measures.
Also, hybrid work, AI and IT/OT system convergence all pose significant challenges as does the adoption of cloud technology, the survey revealed.
