The Asean-Japan Cybersecurity Technical Working Group’s joint meeting emphasized the need for comprehensive collaboration between government and private sector organizations to combat cyber threats in Asia.
“A harmonious whole-of-Asia and whole-of-society approach to fight cyber threats in the region has to be orchestrated among government and private sector leaders in Asean and Japan, along with other countries in the region,” said Lito Averia, president of the Philippine Computer Emergency Response Team (PH-CERT).
The meeting, held alongside the fifth board meeting of the newly formed Asean-Japan Cybersecurity Community Alliance (AJCCA) in Cambodia, highlighted the increasing cyber-attacks on government digital ecosystems and critical information infrastructure (CII).
Sam Jacoba, founding president of the National Association of Data Protection Officers of the Philippines (Nadpop), proposed the establishment of an Information Exchange Network to serve as a regional cyber weather station, sending threat alerts to impacted areas.
PH-CERT and Nadpop estimate that the Philippines requires 180,000 trained cybersecurity professionals to safeguard its CIIs. A similar number of data privacy and governance professionals are also needed.
Joint initiatives
The meeting also focused on the five pillars of the Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) published by the United Nations International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which include Legal, Technical, Organizational, Capacity Building, and Cooperation.
Averia and Jacoba shared that forthcoming joint initiatives between government and private sector organizations aim to address cybersecurity gaps identified in the GCI pillars.
“When government and private sector organizations work hand-in-hand to fight cyber threats, citizens will benefit the most,” Averia stressed.
“We are inviting all active Communities of Practice in the region to collaborate with our regional community, the AJCCA, as threat actors are also organized in their actions. We truly need a whole-of-region, whole-of-society, and even whole-of-community cooperation to effectively respond to cyber threats,” Jacoba said.