The US, Japan, and the Philippines reportedly will join forces in cybersecurity defense with a strategic cyber threat-sharing arrangement in the wake of rising attacks by China, North Korea, and Russia.
The initiative will launch during high-level trilateral talks between US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. during a trilateral summit in Washington this week, according to the English-language version of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The cyber alliance comes on the heels of Volt Typhoon, a group of cyberattackers linked to China’s military, targeting critical infrastructure networks in the Philippines and US territories in the region.
Over the past three months, the number of cyberattack attempts against national government agencies in the Philippines has increased 20% week over week, according to data from Trend Micro shared with Dark Reading.
“Traditional US allies in Asia — Japan, Taiwan, Philippines — are of high interest to Chinese-aligned attackers,” says Robert McArdle, director of forward-looking threat research with the cybersecurity firm. “There has been an increase in tensions in the region recently as well as important political events including presidential elections that China maintains interest in.”
The cybersecurity concerns come as geopolitical tensions have ratcheted up in the region. China has both expanded its military presence, especially with its claims to large sections of the…
