Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III has directed the government’s two main tax agencies to further fortify their respective systems against hacking and other cyber threats amid increasing number of scams perpetrated online against financial consumers.
Dominguez said the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs should make sure that their cybersecurity measures are up to date and effective against all sorts of threats.
Dominguez recalled that the recent hacking incident involving two private banks and one state-lender as proof of the rise in cyber attacks as more Filipinos resort to online transactions to avoid face-to-face interactions amid the pandemic.
Land Bank of the Philippines has already issued a statement saying that its systems remain secure against any form of hacking, and that its initial investigation showed the teachers were the victims of phishing.
Phishing is a scheme in which hackers pretend to be legitimate banking representatives either by sending fake emails or text messages via bogus bank websites to obtain confidential bank details from clients and use these to pilfer or make unauthorized money transfers from the victims’ accounts.
Finance Undersecretary Antonette Tionko, head of the Department of Finance’s (DOF) Revenue Operations Group (ROG), assured Dominguez that cybersecurity is covered by the ongoing digitalization and modernization programs of the two agencies.
“Please make sure that that's up to date because apparently, it's getting more and more prevalent,” Dominguez told Tionko.
Long before the pandemic broke out in March 2020, Dominguez already directed DOF and its attached agencies to vigorously pursue their respective digitalization programs to help boost revenue collections and further improve the delivery of services to the public.
In 2020, Dominguez rdered government financial institutions (GFIs) and other agencies under the DOF to work together in coming up with a cost-effective defense strategy that will shield their respective systems from potential cybersecurity threats.
He instructed GFIs, state-run pension fund and insurance agencies, and the revenue and treasury agencies to enter into their respective memoranda of agreement (MOAs) on a shared cyber defense strategy.