Cybercriminals hacked BDO accounts, stealing between P25,000 and P50,000 pesos per account, according to the social media community in the Philippines.

A number of BDO customers have reported that their bank accounts have been hacked, with cyber criminals making illicit transactions to UnionBank accounts, according to social media posts.

Hackers siphoned money from BDO accounts and transferred it to a UnionBank account under a false name, according to a Manila Bulletin investigation, and used the proceeds to buy PHP 5 million worth of Bitcoin from a cryptocurrency market on December 11. Nearly 700 clients’ reimbursements are being processed by BDO. Customers claim that they were requested to sign a quitclaim, which states that they will not sue the bank as a result of the occurrence.

Due to the recent occurrence, BDO has issued a statement stating that it has not amended any restrictions to its terms and conditions.

The liability clause, according to the business, is standard practice in the banking industry. To retain a positive customer connection, the company made an exception and took on the losses that were not caused by the clients.

BDO previously admitted to becoming a victim of a sophisticated fraud scheme that harmed several of its clients.

You can read more about the incident in our earlier piece, which can be found right here.

Phishing scams using text messaging are on the rise, mainly capitalizing on the vulnerabilities of many Filipinos who were left jobless during the pandemic. The situation has become alarming enough to prompt the National Privacy Commission (NPC) to launch a probe.

While Globe has been working closely with the NPC to address the problem, it also calls for the private sector to be more open to collaboration to prevent similar incidents from happening or escalating.

“I don’t think the private sector shares enough intelligence and data to be able to speed up our ability to respond to attacks,” said Anton Bonifacio, Globe Chief Information Security Officer.

He added: “I understand why some of the other companies are a little bit more careful because traditionally, it was better to keep things to yourself than to let anything out there. But what I’m hoping is that companies will be a little bit more comfortable over time.”

Despite the arm’s length relationship when it comes to private sector partnerships, Globe has already made headway with the banks who have also been very eager to collaborate over the past year or so.  It now has a 24/7 group chat with each major commercial bank.  Banks can report a phishing campaign that impersonates a URL, a domain, a number, as well as other incidents, and Globe will investigate and block them immediately.

Globe has also established a free whitelisting of official aggregators.  These SMS blasting companies are the only ones allowed to use a brand or company name as an SMS sender, to help prevent SMS spoofing attacks.

From its success with the banks, Globe has moved on to Lazada and Shopee. Globe works with them directly to make sure that it can immediately act when customers of the online marketplaces are under attack.

Bonifacio remains confident that as more companies see the value of digitization and digital transformation, they will realize the importance of information sharing from a security sense and a business standpoint.

“At least on our end, we just decided to build those relationships directly with the key stakeholders.  We already have that information shared with all major commercial banks, all major online retailers. But of course, from an advocacy perspective, it would be nice to see more across the larger spectrum,” he said.

Globe has already blocked about one billion spam messages and deactivated 5,670 confirmed spam numbers this year.  However, Bonifacio said it is a cat and mouse game since the messages and sources change constantly.  Even if a message is blocked, another one from a different source will come out.

Aside from going directly to the companies affected to get their inputs, Globe has systems that filter and proactively catch text scams.  Yet, the company also needs the help of the customers to prevent these from spreading.

Globe is the only telco that has an official spam reporting website. It empowers customers to easily report mobile numbers responsible for these messages by going to https://www.globe.com.ph/stop-spam.html.

The company is relentlessly fighting scams and protecting its customers through proactive filtering, enhanced cybersecurity infrastructure, and awareness and education campaigns.

Globe strongly supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly UN SDG No. 9, highlighting the roles of infrastructure and innovation as crucial drivers of economic growth and development. It is committed to upholding the UN Global Compact principles and contributing to 10 UN SDGs.

Thailand Office of The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), Siriraj Hospital, and Huawei Thursday jointly launched the “Siriraj World Class 5G Smart Hospital.”

This project remarks the first and largest 5G smart hospital project in Thailand and the ASEAN region. It aims to bring a more efficient and convenient experience to patients by introducing technologies such as 5G, cloud, and artificial intelligence and promoting Siriraj Hospital to become a model for smart hospitals in Thailand and the world.

At the same time, Siriraj Hospital and Huawei will establish a Joint Innovation Lab to incubate innovative 5G applications. Currently, the two parties have started piloting 5G portable medical boxes, 5G unmanned vehicles, 5G medical carts, and 5G smart hospital beds. It is expected that 30 5G medical applications will be incubated and promoted nationwide in 2022.

General Prayut Chan-o-cha, Prime Minister, addressed the national policy on 5G technology and digital economy, stating, “The Thai government understands the importance of technology, successfully drafting a plan for Digital Thailand, and today is an important first step in the utilization of digital technologies and 5G in the medical field. This will help reduce processes for medical personnel, decrease overall risk, and will improve the effectiveness and efficacy of healthcare for patients. We will use Siriraj 5G Smart Hospital as a pilot project with the aim of expanding to other hospitals in the future. We admire Siriraj Hospital and Mahidol University and would like to thank Huawei, NBTC, private organizations, and all other partners involved in this project. We hope the project will act as a blueprint for all Smart Hospitals in Thailand going forward.”

Prof. Dr. Prasit Watanapa, MD, Dean of Faculty of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital Mahidol University, shared the background and development of implementing Siriraj’s Smart Hospital Project with 5G and artificial intelligence (AI) to build a model for “Smart Hospitals” in collaboration with its partners – introducing 5G, Cloud, AI, and Digital Disruption technologies for application in prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation to enhance the quality and productivity of medical services, bring about good experiences while using its services, provide people in remote areas with better opportunities to access advanced tertiary health care services, as well as minimize the disparity and serve as a model for new generations of medical services to the global public health industry.  In addition, an Innovation Lab and other innovative platforms were also established to cultivate innovation projects in the future. 

Colonel Natee Sukonrat, Ph.D., Vice-Chairman of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, addressed the NBTC’s support of the Project by saying that “The NBTC, as the regulatory body of broadcasting and telecommunications businesses, has a key mission for licensing frequencies to accommodate high-speed wireless communications in the 5G era, to promote the national telecommunications infrastructure development, and introduce the extension and utilization of technologies to various sectors. This is in line with the government’s policy after the National 5G Committee resolved to approve the pioneer Smart Hospital project as a prototype project for 5G application and foresaw the potential of Siriraj Hospital – equipped with specialists and fully-integrated medical equipment – as being instrumental in development into a smart hospital to produce apparent results.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Siriraj Hospital and Huawei have established long-term cooperation in 5G technology development and application. In June 2020, Siriraj Hospital cooperated with Huawei Thailand to launch 5G self-driving vehicles for contactless delivery of medical supplies. In December 2020, Huawei signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding with Siriraj Hospital to accelerate the intelligent operation of Siriraj Hospital using digital technologies such as 5G, including patient monitoring, diagnosis, and data collection, and provide technical training for doctors in the hospital. In 2020, Siriraj won the award from CommunicAsia Awards in the category of “Most Innovative 5G Trial in Asia Pacific Region.”

This cross-sector collaboration will enhance and upgrade the services of Siriraj Hospital to progress it to become a smart medical center using digital technologies based on 5G, AI, Big Data infrastructure, and Cloud Edge processing for the purpose of patient tracking, disease diagnosis by AI on Cloud, data storage and analysis, and allocation of resources – all of which will help pave the way to fulfill the Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital’s vision to become the “Medical Institute of the Nation, a Creator of Global Citizen Wellbeing”, and a Smart Hospital model for other hospitals in Thailand.