A Bicol congressman on Saturday renewed his appeal to the the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to collaborate to prepare the business sector against online threats.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte made the appeal in the wake of reports indicating that one out of every two small and medium enterprises (SMEs) suffered cyber attacks since last year.
Villafuerte cited the need for DTI Secretary Alfredo Pascual and DICT Secretary Ivan John Enrile Uy to complement their campaign to encourage SMEs to shift to digital platforms with a massive information drive underscoring the need to shield these enterprises’ respective systems from cyber criminals.
“The DTI should team up with the DICT to ensure that these digital platforms are safe and secure from hackers and other cyber threats,” Villafuerte said.
He said “cyber attacks not only lead to revenue losses and disruption of operations for SMEs.”
“They also erode the trust and confidence of consumers on businesses that have been victims of such cyber attacks.
Cybersecurity is an indispensable element to ensure that SMEs are adequately protected when they expand their businesses to the digital marketplace,” Villafuerte added.
Villafuerte also noted Cisco’s “Cybersecurity for SMBs: Asia Pacific businesses prepare for digital defense” study that was released recently, which showed that 57 percent of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the Philippines suffered a cyber-incident over the past year.
The study indicated that over a quarter of these cyber incidents cost the businesses more than $500,000 in revenue losses.
Based on the study, the top reason given as the cause of these incidents was that cybersecurity solutions were not adequate to detect or prevent cyber-attacks.
“Cybercrimes have risen with the rapid shift in the way people live and use the Internet to interact, both socially and economically,” Villafuerte said.