PHL companies must brace for faster, automated cyberattacks — CrowdStrike

By Beatriz Marie D. Cruz, Reporter

PHILIPPINE COMPANIES must secure their systems with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) as online attacks become increasingly automated, leading to faster breaches, according to American cyber defense firm CrowdStrike.

“As adversaries weaponize AI to accelerate their attacks and scale their operations, AI-powered defenses help organizations to level the playing field and shift from reactive response to proactive threat disruption,” Fabio Fratucello, field chief technology officer worldwide at CrowdStrike, said in an e-mail.

Companies must use agentic security capabilities that can act across identity, endpoint, and cloud domains in real-time, he said.

“Organizations should consider adopting an agentic security platform that enables security teams to command and orchestrate these capabilities across the security lifecycle, connecting context and data, so agents can reason and act dynamically together in real time, and always under human control.”

This would allow them to move beyond assisted workflows to autonomous security operations, he added.

Mr. Fratucello said attackers have been injecting hidden instructions into generative AI tools to hijack agents, manipulate outcomes, and access sensitive data.

“The weaponization of AI by adversaries has accelerated attack timelines, with what once took days now taking hours or minutes, collapsing the window for defenders to respond,” Mr. Fratucello said.

Philippine companies should also adopt zero-trust security principles and continuous identity monitoring, as more attackers focus on login attempts to kickstart their attacks, the official said.

He likewise emphasized the need for authentication measures with phishing-resistant multi-factor solutions.

Companies should implement strong access policies, like just-in-time access and eliminating standing privileges, he said. Employees should also be educated to recognize social engineering, phishing, and voice phishing threats.

Cloud intrusions, or an attacker’s illegal access to an organization’s cloud computing system, jumped by 136% globally in the first half of 2025 compared to end-2024, according to the 2025 CrowdStrike Threat Hunting Report.

About 40% of these attacks were attributed to China-linked adversaries, and eCrime actors were responsible for 73% of interactive intrusions, it said.

“These threats are proliferating on a global scale, and we expect them to accelerate in 2026,” Mr. Fratucello said.

Meanwhile, CrowdStrike’s 2025 Asia-Pacific & Japan eCrime Landscape Report showed that an eCrime actor has been targeting Philippine banks and foreign exchange services.

These attackers allegedly “leverage financial transaction-themed phishing lures to deliver remote access tools and commodity malware payloads,” Mr. Fratucello said.