PH banks say digital systems up again amid global cyber outage

Several Philippine banks that have been affected by the global cyber outage have said that their online and digital systems are again up following the large-scale disruption that hit various industries worldwide. 

In separate advisories, BDO Unibank, Metrobank, RCBC, and the Bank of the Philippine Islands indicated that their online banking systems are again working.

The Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas earlier said that it ''has required affected BSP-supervised financial institutions to provide updates and activate their resilience and continuity plans as needed.''

The BSP said that some of its supervised financial institutions have already restored affected systems. 

“The BSP is closely monitoring the global Microsoft and Crowdstrike outage. Some BSP-Supervised Financial Institutions (BSFIs) have experienced disruptions but are addressing the issue, while some already restored affected systems,” the statement read.

The BSP said that its Peso Real Time Gross Settlement System or PhilPassPlus was unaffected, including the PESONet, Instapay, ATM, and checks

“The financial system remains resilient, with alternative channels and digital platforms available for individuals and businesses,” the BSP said. 

The Department of Information and Communications Technology said that it was vigilantly monitoring the situation but added that the global IT outage was not due to hacking or a cyberattack.

According to George Kutz, president and CEO of U.S. cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, also said that "this is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed." 

CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We…

— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024

—NB, GMA Integrated News