Phl except gov't 'relatively safe' from cyber attacks

MANILA, Philippines - While the Philippines in general is safe from cyber attacks and espionage, its government and businesses remain vulnerable, a security software firm's official said.

"The Philippines seems relatively safe from major mobile malware and cyber espionage (but) attacks against government institutions and corporations are possible," Kaspersky Lab Southeast Asia Jimmy Fong said in a statement Wednesday.

Fong said that recent denial-of-service or DDOS attacks against state-owned sites are indicators that the country's government systems are still at risk.

“These attacks can be dangerous for any institution especially now that the Philippines is linked to other countries via broadband Internet connections. Security even in the virtual world is the responsibility of everyone and putting in place the best security solutions is paramount,” he said.

A temporary webpage to ward off cyber attacks is shown whenever government portal Gov.ph is loaded.

Last year, government websites gov.ph and president.gov.ph implemented CloudFlare, a security software that attempts to block anomalous visitors and prevent DDOS, a mild form of cyber attack.

Filipino hackers defaced the sites as a form of protest to the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, which they say can potentially threaten freedom of speech and expression on the Internet.

US most targeted

Fong, citing the digital security company's IT Threat Evolution Q1 2013 report, said that 1.3 billion threats were detected and neutralized by Kaspersky Lab's network with the US as the most targeted country.

The report said that 25.1 percent of worldwide threats were against the US. Russia (19.2 percent), The Netherlands (14.4 percent), Germany (11.5 percent), Ukraine (3.3 percent) and UK (3 percent) were also favorites of hackering and cyber espionage networks.

Chinese hackers dominating

Kaspersky security expert Denis Maslennikov, meanwhile, said that China has faced accusations of its involvement in cyber attacks against government agencies and organizations in countries around the world.

A group called Red October, allegedly composed of Chinese hackers sponsored by their government, has been responsible for some of the most serious and intricate attacks in the past five years.

The attacks targeted government offices, with Red October expanding its network of infected systems to over 60 domain names spread across several host servers across the world.

"Red October’s techniques have also expanded to infecting and stealing through USB devices and smartphones," Maslennikov said.

He added that alleged state-sponsored cyber attacks and spread of smartphone malware or virus have increased in the first quarter of the year.