BusinessWorld sets 1st Cybersecurity Forum

MANILA, Philippines — Businesses, whether large or small, are confronted with increasingly sophisticated threats to their cybersecurity that can inflict enormous financial and reputational harm. How they deal with these threats can make or break them.

On Nov. 22, BusinessWorld, the country’s leading business newspaper, is holding its first Cybersecurity Forum at the Glass Pavilion of Dusit Thani Manila in Makati City.

It will feature a prestigious panel of cybersecurity analysts and experts from both the private and the public sectors to help participants make sense of the cybersecurity risks and safeguards for different business organizations.

The first part of the forum will revolve around building a cyber-resilient culture. This kind of culture is now more critical than ever. Last August, a cybersecurity company reported that the Philippines ranked ninth worldwide in terms of online attacks during the second quarter of the year, during which nearly 10.7 million malware infections were recorded.

One study released also this year estimated that the country could lose as much as $3.5 billion, which is equivalent to roughly more than one percent of its gross domestic product, as a result of cybersecurity incidents.

Raymund Enriquez Liboro, commissioner and chairman of the National Privacy Commission, will open the first part of the forum with a presentation on the state of cybersecurity in the Philippines.

He will be followed by Genalyn Macalinao, policy lead of the cybersecurity bureau of the Department of Information and Communications Technology, who will focus on cybersecurity threats and trends.

Dominic “Doc” Ligot, founder and chief technology officer of CirroLytix Research Services, will then give a talk on data governance and ethics.

The best cybersecurity practices will be the focus of the second part of the forum, in recognition of the concerns about data protection and privacy that the rising Internet penetration in the country and the growing number of Filipinos embracing the use of online facilities to make transactions they normally make offline have raised.

Mary Jo Schrade, assistant general counsel and regional director of Microsoft Asia’s Digital Crimes Unit, will tackle how to secure modern enterprises in the digital world.