THE PHILIPPINES saw increased cyberthreats in the first half, led by data breaches, credential theft, ransomware, and attacks enabled by artificial intelligence (AI), according to Viettel Cyber Security (VCS). The company’s latest Cyber Threat Landscape Report based on data from its cyberthreat monitoring platform Viettel Threat Intelligence showed that bad actors are now using multiple techniques and tapping rapidly evolving AI technologies to scale their cyberattacks. VCS also recorded 255 data breach incidents that exposed some 335 million records and 2.6 terabytes (TB) of data. “Among the most significant incidents, coordinated attacks against financial institutions between March and April compromised around 99 million records, while a separate breach affecting a public-service organization exposed another 45 million records,” VCS said. “Organizations need continuous threat intelligence, and real-time monitoring to detect and contain attacks before they escalate,” it said.