President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has approved the National Cybersecurity Plan 2024-2029 to provide the country with policy direction, operational guidelines in building its cybersecurity posture, as well as the fortification of the country’s cyberspace against online threats.
This was announced today by DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said in a press briefing in Malacañang on Thursday.
“We presented the national cybersecurity plan to the President. This was, you know, more than a year in the making and it’s actually a very comprehensive plan covering year 2024-2028. So the national cybersecurity plan is, well, it’s a document that provides direction, policy direction, as well as operational guidelines on how to build up our cybersecurity posture vis-à-vis the rest of the world,” Uy said.
Secretary Uy said the cybersecurity plan was arrived at in consultation with all the different stakeholders from public and private sectors including in the academe and compared the cybersecurity plans of all the other countries.
He explained that the documents were compared “to see where the thrust has been in terms of addressing the increasing cyber threats.”
The comprehensive plan will also cover addressing the need to develop good policy to ensure a safe cyber landscape for the country, identify cyber assets, infrastructure that needs protection, and provide government agencies and sectors with a guideline on how to respond to any cyberattacks or attempts.
The plan also incorporated advanced threat assessment so that even before those incidents happen, the government could obtain information ahead from its international partners.
Another important component of the plan includes capacity building and upskilling of cybersecurity personnel, Uy said, adding there are more than two million job vacancies for cybersecurity today.
“So, we are intensifying on a massive scale our training and our capacity building for cybersecurity, for AI, for many of the emerging technologies among our digital workforce,” Uy said, saying the large pool of young workers in the country averaged 24 to 25 years of age.
“This a very ideal because in the next two decades, the Philippines will be the country that would have one of the biggest and youngest workforce that can address many of the challenges that are faced by First World countries – their aging population, their lack of manpower in order to meet their economic development,” he said.
And aside from upskilling or scaling up of its training component, the DICT is also doing more information campaigns to make the public aware of the risks involved and the different schemes and scams that are out there.
Uy encouraged the public to visit sites that regularly educate the people on the prevalent online scams often used to secure and protect themselves from being victimized. PND