AI deployed to hack illegal sites
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MANILA, Philippines — Artificial intelligence (AI), whose popularity has been rapidly increasing across the globe, is seen as the main culprit behind billions of attempts in the Philippines to access illegal websites last year, according to Converge ICT Solutions Inc.
The telecommunications provider said in a statement on Monday that it had blocked 183 billion attempts to enter 683,000 illegal domains, including those related to child sexual abuse, phishing and online gambling.
This is nearly 20 times the number of recorded attempts in 2021 to 2023, during which the average was at 10 to 12 billion.
“These attempts on our customer network are most likely hinged on AI—hackers and malicious agents are no longer doing this manually or through human intervention,” said Eugene Yeo, Converge chief executive adviser, noting that the company also used AI to block these attempts.
“So it’ll be down to AI versus AI. That’s what we’re doing, internally, to protect our network in Converge,” Yeo added.
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Last year, Converge added 150,000 domains into its system tagged as illicit or unlawful. Of this number, nearly 98 percent were classified child sexual abuse materials or online sexual abuse or exploitation of children (OSAEC).
Converge chief information security officer Andrew Malijan said traffic to these newly enrolled links was “quite heavy.”
AI is one of the key technologies that companies have been racing to integrate into their systems, as it is seen to help improve operational efficiency.
In its recent 2025 Global CEO Survey, PwC found that 75 percent of 32 respondents from the Philippines trust having AI “embedded into key business processes.”
This is higher than the global average of 67 percent, implying that Philippine companies have a higher level of confidence in the potential of AI to enhance operations.
But with the same technology being used to access illegal websites, Converge said user education remained the “first line of defense.”
“The way we have to approach it has to be different; the 183 billion attempts can easily go up to 200 or more billion. Education is ultimately the best defense,” Yeo said.
For its part, Converge said it had partnered with nongovernment organizations, law enforcement agencies and international organizations to increase OSAEC awareness.
