Filipino firms suffer AI-aided web-based attacks

Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky raised the need for Philippine enterprises to beef up defenses against online threats as Southeast Asia dealt with nearly 147,000 web attacks everyday in the first half of this year.

In a statement on Tuesday, Kaspersky reported that 846,837 web threats targeted users in the Philippines in January to June 2024.

This latest data suggest a slight increase as the full-year salvo of web-based attacks aimed at local enterprises surged to 1.69 million last year from 492,567 in 2022.

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In total, Southeast Asia saw over 26 million web attacks for the six-month period. Most of these were logged in Malaysia with 19.6 million threats, followed by Indonesia with 3.2 million.

Vietnam dealt with 1.4 million attacks while Thailand saw 1.06 million. Singapore had the least web threats with 574,292.

Web attacks come in different forms, including the typical phishing emails embedded with suspicious web addresses linking to fake websites where unsuspecting victims will be tricked into providing sensitive information.

“As businesses and governments in the region continue to embrace digitalization to drive economic growth, their increased reliance on digital platforms broadens their attack surface,” said Yeo Siang Tiong, general manager for Southeast Asia at Kaspersky.

The disruption in operations caused by cyberattacks is detrimental to the business due to spending related to retrieval of their data or system, in addition to opportunity costs because of the down time.

Yeo warned that web threats were only expected to get even more sophisticated because of artificial intelligence (AI) tools that can aid hackers in launching their attacks.

With the help of AI tools, for example, phishing email or text scams can appear legitimate, making them more deceiving in the eyes of the recipients. INQ