H-ISAC TLP White Report: Critical Infrastructure Threat Landscape of the Philippines

Key Takeaways:

• Mass anti-corruption protests and labor strikes threaten recurring disruptions: Large-scale mobilizations have reemerged as a destabilizing force, with peaceful demonstrations at times devolving into violence that disrupts logistics and strains emergency services. At the same time, transport unions, jeepney operators and healthcare workers have staged repeated strikes and stoppages over corruption scandals, modernization policies and unpaid allowances, creating recurring risks of supply chain bottlenecks, delayed medical services and fuel distribution interruptions.
• Terrorism and insurgency risks remain localized but persistent: Militant groups in the southern Philippines continue to pose episodic threats of violence and disruption to critical infrastructure, even as overall risks elsewhere in the country have declined.
• Increasingly intense extreme weather events drive cascading threats to critical infrastructure: Super typhoons and monsoon rains are producing more frequent power outages, road and port closures and water contamination, with unfinished or poorly maintained flood control infrastructure amplifying vulnerabilities for healthcare facilities and supply chains, while also contributing to unrest risks.
• Chinese threat actors pose the most sophisticated cyber threats: The most advanced cyber threats come from Chinese state-sponsored groups, which pose persistent monitoring and intellectual property theft risks, including for critical infrastructure entities, posing at least secondary threats to the healthcare sector.
• Cybercriminals and hacktivists are becoming larger threats: Cybercriminals and, to a lesser extent, hacktivists pose growing threats to critical infrastructure, while some nationalist hacktivist groups could escalate their activities amid flare-ups in tensions with China related to South China Sea disputes.

View the detailed report below.