US, PH army troops hold cybersecurity training

TOGETHER VS TECHIE THREAT Philippine and US Army cyber workforce listen to Maj. Geremeo Vallecera, chief of the Philippine Army’s cyberspace management branch, during a cybersecurity training in Manila aimed at increasing capabilities and competencies. —PHOTO FROM PHILIPPINE ARMY

The armies of the Philippines and the United States are holding a small-scale cybersecurity training in Manila as part of the Philippine Army’s (PA) efforts to increase capabilities and competencies in its cyber workforce on incident response, mitigation and active defense operations.

The five-day cybersecurity subject matter expert exchange held at the Army headquarters in Taguig City started on Monday and will wrap up today, the Army said in a statement.

Five subject matter experts from the United States and 56 personnel from the PA are taking part in the series of lectures.

“Both armies will conduct the activity through a series of lectures, discussions, demonstration of various cyber tools, and cyber exercises focusing on cyber intelligence, TTPs (tactics, techniques and procedures), best practice of Regional Center Pacific, DOTMPLF (doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities) for Cyber Security Operations Center development, recovery planning and incident response, network resilience, expeditionary cyber forces, and electronic warfare,” the statement read.

PH targets

Learning is a two-way street and warfighting is a team effort, said Col. Windell Frederick Rebong, deputy assistant chief of staff for command and control, communications and cybersystems.

He encouraged the participants to actively share their ideas and maximize the opportunity to learn from each other.

A US cybersecurity company reported in 2009 that at least four Philippine government agencies, including the Philippine Navy and the AFP, were being persistently targeted by Chinese state-sponsored hackers.

Cybersecurity has become a prominent feature of military exercises between the two allies such as the “Balikatan” last month wherein a cyberdefense exercise simulated defending and attacking networks while exploiting each other’s operating procedures.

Part of guidelines

“We are not yet technically proficient on cyberdefense, our systems are not that yet proficient so we aim to learn from the better ones, we learn from our counterparts so that’s how we develop our cyberdefense capabilities in the near-future,” Philippine military exercise director Maj. Gen. Marvin Licudine said at the time.

Both countries also agreed to strengthen defense on cyberspace as part of the new bilateral defense guidelines which was adopted during President Marcos’ visit to Washington early this month.

Priorities include the improvement of cyberdefense and cybersecurity cooperation “to secure critical infrastructure and build protection against attacks emanating from state and nonstate actors by strengthening interoperability” between the two militaries, as well as “fostering collaboration with other relevant departments and agencies.” —Frances Mangosing 

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