Axidian took an interview of Mr Leo Querubin, the Executive Director for Business Development of Pointwest Technologies Corporation, the trusted partner of Axidian and the leading cybersecurity company which provides enterprise-grade solutions for its customers.
1. Dear Leo, please share your opinion about the cybersecurity situation in the Philippines. What challenges can you name?
There is a high awareness of cybersecurity in the Philippines, both in the public and private sectors. From a legal perspective, the Philippines has passed cybersecurity-related laws to protect both users and suppliers.
Due to the very secretive nature of cybersecurity, the exact number of public and private companies that have had cybersecurity exposures is not known. But there are a number of well-publicized hacks, such as the Bangladesh Bank cyber heist which happened in February 2016. US$81 million was illegally transferred to a Philippine bank from the central bank of Bangladesh account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
In the public sector, a much-publicized hack was the breach of the Philippine Commission on Elections voters’ data. Also in 2016, information on 55 million registered voters, which included passport numbers and expiry dates were exposed to the public.
These incidences have heightened the public’s awareness of cybersecurity in the country. Unfortunately, the awareness stops at the ground level. High management may be fully aware and follow cybersecurity protocols but the urgency and importance sometimes do not cascade down to the employees. There still needs to be behavioural changes in cybersecurity attitudes. The products of Axidian, like Axidian Access, a software for strong and multi-factor authentication (MFA), can provide the structural changes that force everyone to follow necessary cybersecurity procedures.
2. How does Pointwest help organisations to strengthen their cybersecurity?
Pointwest is one of the accredited VAPT providers of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and it has conducted VAPT services to several organizations in the country. Pointwest leverages this extensive experience and shares this knowledge by organizing webinars on various topics, including cybersecurity.
3. Could you please tell us about your impression from the partnership with Axidian?
Axidian has unique products and solutions that augment the services offered by Pointwest. This synergy provides more value to our clients.
4. How do you address the cybersecurity challenges together with Axidian?
We will have joint go-to-market strategies with Axidian to establish thought leadership in the market. These can include webinars and joint demo presentations to the clients.
Pointwest and Axidian will also have joint account engagements, strengthening Axidian’s position as a global cybersecurity partner, with Pointwest as the local implementor.
5. What benefits can the company gain due to the Pointwest and Axidian collaboration?
Customers get the best of both worlds – the world-class cybersecurity products of Axidian and the experience and expertise of the local cybersecurity landscape of Pointwest.
