Philippine Army Chief assures readiness against cyber threats

So long as the cyber threats are detectable, there’s no need to worry because that means, the Philippine Army is capable of defending its digital space.

This was the statement of Philippine Army chief LtGen. Roy Galido during a press briefing at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City on Thursday, stressing that they continue to boost efforts against cyber threats amid the evolving national security challenges.

“The skills set of cyber security personnel could be very broad what is important is that we have people in uniform [who are] able to address the cyber threats….and the fact that we can monitor threats or attempts or attacks against our network, then we have the capability,” Galido said.

The army chief underscored that efficient efforts to combat cyber attacks are still on their plate.

“Everybody is learning on this, what is more important is that we established a unit to address this security. Cyber threats are evolving, just like social media, it's evolving. You can see the difference in social media platforms from last year to this year,” he said.

“That’s how dynamic the cyber environment is and that’s what we are trying to address. Also, [we require] dynamic manpower to be able to address that situation,” he added.

Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, previously said the military will need more “intelligent and very skillful” information technology experts to become part of the country’s Cyber Security Command after the increased number of government agencies, including the military, being hacked.

Brawner said the Cyber Command will consolidate all the cyber units from the AFP’s three major services—the Philippine Army, the Philippine Navy, and the Philippine Air Force.

“What we need is to integrate all of these efforts because when a cyberattack happens, it does not just focus on one unit but it’s in the entire network that we would like to protect,” he explained.