Amid the proliferation of cyberattacks and generative AI (GenAI), the head of a global cybersecurity firm recently issued a strong statement urging the government and enterprises in the Philippines to use more modern security controls.
Doing so, according to the executive, will help address more sophisticated security attacks that may be expected to be launched by cyber criminals this year. Raymond Almanon, Senior Security Specialist at Trend Micro Philippines, also warned of the transformative role of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in the cyber threat landscape.
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“GenAI is a type of AI that is capable of generating either texts, images, or sometimes even videos using generative models. For this year, we are seeing that generative AI will stand out to be a potent tool for attackers, especially for impersonation and data theft attacks,” said Almanon.
“We’ll also see more of voice cloning this year,” he added.
Phishing, data breach and extortion top list of crime reports in 2022
Citing data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Trend Micro reported that in 2022, phishing, personal data breach, non-payment, and extortion top the list of internet crime reports.
A global study commissioned by Trend Micro also showed that more than half of global organizations have had part of their supply chain compromised by ransomware.
Monte de Jesus, Threats Analyst at Trend Micro Philippines, explained that based on their telemetry data, the Philippines ranked 8th in the most number of ransomware detections last year.
“Several companies in different sectors, whether private or government, are prone to ransomware attacks due to possibility in vulnerability exposure, social engineering attacks, or even more targeted way of attack,” de Jesus shared.
He said that the top three notorious ransomware operators now plaguing the Philippines are professional cybercrooks. These are LockBit, followed by Trigona and Blackcat ransomware.
Importance of threat intelligence in fighting GenAI cyberattacks
Ian Felipe, Country Manager of Trend Micro Philippines, cited the importance of threat intelligence and having a consolidated platform in fighting cyberattacks.
Felipe said threat intelligence is needed amid the digital transformation and cloud adoption of many organizations today.
“You have to invest in a holistic and robust cybersecurity platform. Organizations should equip themselves with appropriate tools that leverage emerging technologies like AI and data analytics which empower cyber security capabilities such as attack, surface risk management, and the extended detection and response to combat cyber threats,” Felipe further stated.
“You have to have a tool, you have to have a consolidated platform that can help protect the organization. A lot of organizations right now, they use different security tools but if it’s not consolidated, if it’s not in a platform, then it hampers the ability of the organization to respond to the threats or to respond to the situation,” he added.