PLDT sets cybersecurity budget at about P1B yearly

PLDT, Inc. said it will keep investing around P1 billion in cybersecurity every year, as attacks and threats continue to increase.

“We will continue to invest about a billion a year in cybersecurity,” Alfredo S. Panlilio, president and chief executive officer of PLDT and its unit Smart Communications, Inc., said during a recent press briefing.

“Knock on wood, our cyber team has done a good job; we will continue to monitor and we will continue to make sure that we remain secure,” he added.

Angel T. Redoble, first vice-president, chief information security officer, and head of PLDT and Smart Communication’s Cyber Security Operations Group, said the company has a three-year cybersecurity strategy.

“The budget is strategy-driven. I presented the three-year strategy in 2018, which should have ended last year,” he told BusinessWorld in a virtual interview.

“Because of the pandemic, some of the projects were [delayed], so we are completing such projects this year,” he added.

He said his team is requesting “close to P2 billion” for cybersecurity every year.

In December, the group said it had invested “nearly P3 billion” in cybersecurity infrastructure.

The investments have “strengthened the PLDT group’s predictive, detective, and responsive capabilities, acquiring more than 200 million cyber threat intelligence information, and detecting and preventing close to 300 million combined types of cyber attacks this year (2021),” it said in an e-mailed statement.

“To ensure the sustainability of their fortified cybersecurity program, PLDT and Smart also started conducting Cyber War Games in 2021, where we identify different types of sophisticated attacks as well as our existing controls and processes, and we assess if these controls and processes can be retained or must be improved moving forward,” it added.

Hastings Holdings, Inc., a unit of PLDT Beneficial Trust Fund subsidiary MediaQuest Holdings, Inc., has a majority stake in BusinessWorld through the Philippine Star Group, which it controls. — Arjay L. Balinbin

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