Globe keeps multibillion-dollar investment in cybersecurity amid worsening threats
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 13) — Industry giant Globe Telecom has already shelled out nearly $80 million in beefing up its cybersecurity since 2015, but it will continue to pour investments amid pandemic-driven online threats, an official said.
Globe Chief Information Security Officer Anton Reynaldo M. Bonifacio said the group has been investing heavily in its security system and manpower to keep its defense strong against criminals.
"Investments have been already... almost $80 million since 2015. We continue to invest in that space," he said in a press briefing Monday.
"What Globe has done is captive to us, building our capabilities to prevent attacks and threats into our infrastructure, and in turn protect our customers," Bonifacio added.
The Globe official said that while a lot of the attacks have been around in the past decade, the pandemic's push for people to immediately adopt a digital lifestyle has become a "force multiplier," with cybercriminals taking advantage of the digital boom.
"Unfortunately, with the increase in adoption, the landscape has certainly been much more bleak as far as cybersecurity is concerned," he said.
Over a year into the coronavirus pandemic, Bonifacio said the number of blocked messages in 2021 has spiked to a billion. About 5,670 confirmed spam numbers were also deactivated by Globe's cybersecurity team.
For the fourth quarter alone, Globe blocked over 260,000 messages. In the same period, Filipinos have been receiving political campaign text messages ahead of the 2022 polls. Scam texts offering fake jobs have been also reported.
Just this weekend, the country's biggest lender BDO Unibank was slammed by its account holders following unauthorized bank transfers.
READ: BDO vows to reimburse fraud victims, strengthen security controls
Assuring the public, Bonifacio said Globe's capability to fend off attacks or breaches has been expanded to cover the group's other businesses, including Mynt, mobile wallet GCash, and KonsultaMD.
"If we are going to be a leader in providing, enabling Filipinos' digital lifestyle, we cannot do digital without cyber (security)," he said.
Globe has been exploring other revenue sources beyond its core business, with Mynt, the fintech firm behind GCash, leading the charge, having attained "double unicorn" status.
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