Customers’ accounts safe amid probe on alleged data breach

MANILA – Mobile payments service GCash has assured its customers that their funds are safe as investigations on the alleged data leak continues.

“Safety and trust are our top priorities. We are very proactive in making sure that our customers’ accounts and money remain safe,” GCash chief marketing officer Neil Trinidad told the Philippine News Agency on the sidelines of the GCash Futurecast 2024 on Friday night.

This was after the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) said it had begun its probe into the alleged data breach on Friday afternoon.

On Thursday, GCash checked its know-your-customer (KYC) data and found no indication of any data compromise.

The inspection was in response to a report made by Deep Web Konek that threat actor KryptonZombie has uploaded about 100 gigabytes of compromised data from GCash, such as mobile numbers, IDs used for KYC processes, GSave account numbers, signatures, and selfie IDs.

“We do safety and protection by introducing lots of secure technologies that help do that. Last year, we introduced ‘double safe,’ which now uses, beyond MPIN (mobile personal identification number) and OTP (one-time pin), face verification to make sure that the person accessing the account is exactly the account holder,” Trinidad said.

“Today, we also introduced Online PaySafe because we know that many scams today happen with victims falling prey to websites that are spoofing well-known commence sites. It redirects you to the GCash app so again it goes through all the secure measures.”

Citing that education plays an important role in resolving cybersecurity issues, Trinidad said the company conducts education campaigns on keeping MPINs and OTPs safe, and that they also cooperate with the CICC, Philippine National Police, and National Bureau of Investigation.

Earlier, GCash reported that it had taken down 1,900 phishing sites from January 2023 to May 2024. It also rejected 3.2 million account takeover attempts and blocked 5.5 million fraudulent GCash accounts for the same period.

Futurecast is an annual event where GCash unveils innovations in financial technology (fintech) in the country.

To provide Filipinos additional ways to pay, GCash introduced Tap to Pay, which allows daily commuters to pay bus, MRT (Manila Metro Rail Transit System), or LRT (Light Railway Transit) fares with their smartphones, and WatchPay to scan their Huawei smartwatches to pay their purchases.

Other fintech features introduced during the Futurecast are Send Money Protect, Money Manager, GScore AI, Coach AI, GImpact, GFarm, GCash Jr. with Parental Control, GSave Jr., International Bank Cash In, GTravel, and GCash Tourist. (PNA)