While the Philippines and its allies contend with China’s gray zone tactics in the disputed West Philippine Sea — involving pernicious maneuvers to intimidate and harass Filipino fishermen and vessels in the country’s exclusive economic zone — the war has started in the cyberworld, featuring armies of hackers and trolls, of whom the enemy has legions.

The government is working double time to build a counterforce of information technology experts to fend off the barrage of misinformation and attempts to intrude into online public domains which are believed to test the integrity of defenses against all-out operations soon.

Disabling the IT systems of the government to cripple the civilian and military services is considered by many as the first strike in an occupation campaign before the armed incursion happens.

Commodore Jay Tarriela, Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson on the West Philippine Sea, said the cyber engagement is already at a heated stage.

Aside from asserting the country’s claim to the West Philippine Sea, the Philippine government is fighting against fake news and misinformation being spread by pro-China trolls, Tarriela said.

The deplorable part is that Filipinos are lending a hand in the Chinese efforts.

Tarriela said that many trolls on social media who take the Chinese propaganda line are Filipinos.

“It means they are willing to receive money to counter our issue in the West Philippine Sea, and that is the saddest part because what we are talking about here is our country,” he said.

“What motivates them to do this? Probably financial gain. Somebody is paying them or funding them to carry out this misinformation and counter our factual narrative,” he added.

Even the private sector has noted an upsurge of malicious online activity lately coinciding with the increase in maritime skirmishes.

The PLDT Group recently appealed for stricter enforcement of cybersecurity laws to protect critical public and private assets as online threats surge.

PLDT and Smart reported a whopping 9,000-percent increase in attempts to crack websites, from 182 million in 2022 to 16 billion in 2023.

In a cyber war, securing the country’s vital infrastructure in energy, telecoms, and financial services should be the foremost concern that will require collaboration among private entities and government units.

It should be the government, however, that would orchestrate cyber defense.

The private sector alone battling the staggering number of cyberattacks, which exceeded a billion hits in three months, will be overwhelmed.

The attacks have lately extended beyond private companies and affected government websites with some hacks identified as potentially state-sponsored and appeared to be driven by the geopolitical tension.

A cybersecurity firm’s survey has found that intrusion incidents in the Philippines became more rampant and aggressive last year.

The attempts have advanced from simple ransomware attacks seeking financial gain for the perpetrators.

“The bad actors will come and say, ‘you pay me money… and I will give you back access to your data.’ Now, it has advanced even more,” according to Fortinet Marketing and Communications for Asia.

More complex cyber infrastructure nowadays are also more vulnerable to threats.

The cyber security firm said the global average for detecting a cyberattack is 21 days, and it will take another 12 hours to control the damage, six hours to investigate, and another 12 hours to implement a remedy.

The Philippines has been hit by the highest number of cyberattacks in the region this year.

The Palo Alto Networks 2023 State of Cybersecurity ASEAN report said 29 percent of Filipino organizations experienced an increase in cybersecurity-related incidents of 50 percent or more, with 51 percent feeling that they are at high risk from threats.

“It has been so easy to attack the Philippines,” Dominic Ligot, a data expert, said.

While Filipinos are geometrically outnumbered, the skills and ingenuity of Filipinos are unmatched, but only if some of them will refuse to sell their souls to Beijing.