The United States expressed its readiness to help the Philippines find ways to combat cybercrimes and cyberattacks amid the spate of hackings in government websites over the past weeks.

In a roundtable discussion Wednesday, US Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson said there is no specific request for assistance from the Philippines as of yet but communication is ongoing on ways to address “all types” of cyberattacks.

“We are already working closely on cyber issues,” she said. “We have a very active coordination on how we can together combat cybercrimes and cyberattacks of all types.”

She said cybersecurity is central to the Philippines-US relations given that data from the US is also tied to Philippine data, especially with the country’s large business process outsourcing sector.

“[W]hen Wall Street closes down a lot of those backroom operations transfer out here so it’s not just Philippine data that is endangered by any attacks here, it’s US data, it’s data globally that could potentially be affected,” she said.

“This is an important issue for US-Philippine relations and we are working very closely with the Philippines on ways that we can combat cyberattacks,” she added.

The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. was earlier subjected to a ransomware attack, with cyberhackers demanding roughly PHP17 million for the compromised database.

This month, the Philippine Statistics Authority also suffered a data breach in its Community-Based Monitoring System. (PNA)