PLDT ramps up spending on fight vs child abuse, online attacks

Industry giant PLDT Inc. and Smart Communications are ramping up defenses against online attacks while cracking down on more child pornography and abuse websites.

To date, thousands of illegal websites have been blocked as the PLDT group pours investments into its cybersecurity operations center, where PLDT and Smart have spent close to P2 billion so far this year. “This is where we predict, prevent, detect and respond to all types of cyberthreats including those related to OSAEC,” said Angel Redoble, referring to the online sexual abuse and exploitation of children.

Redoble, who is PLDT and Smart’s chief information security officer, said their cybersecurity operations center is also used to identify phishing and scamming activities.

High-risk activities

“Now, this includes notifying our enterprise subscribers of attacks and high-risk activities inside their network,” Redoble said.

PLDT and Smart have successfully blocked 3,020 domains that host illicit materials featuring children as mandated by the National Telecommunications Commission.“We expanded our sources on these illegal sites so we can block as many domains as possible,” Francisco Ashley Acedillo, Smart assistant vice president and chief strategy officer of the Cybersecurity Operations Group.

“We’ve been doing open-source threat intelligence gathering, purchasing available commercial threat intelligence and receiving information from our government through law enforcement agencies on which sites to block,” he added.

The companies, however, said more are needed to be done to strengthen the country’s Cybercrime Prevention Law.

“This can’t be done by the telcos and law enforcement agencies alone. We need to involve agencies concerned with children’s welfare to make sure that we break the cycle and victims don’t end up back to the same oppressive industry they came from,” Redoble said. INQ