The DoST’s Philippine National Public Key Infrastructure (PNPKI) uses digital certificates to secure internet transactions between people and with the different government agencies.
A digital certificate is an attachment to an electronic message used to verify that the sender is who he or she claims to be and to give a receiver the means to encrypt a reply.
According to Rage Callao, of the DoST Advanced Science and Technology Institute, digital certificates could be issued to people, organizations and systems after a strict process of verification by the registration authority.
A person who wants to send an encrypted message can apply for a digital certificate, valid for two years, with a registration authority that will ask the certificating authority, the NCC, to generate the applicant’s digital certificate and private key. The digital certificate with the virtual key can then be used to encrypt emails or documents as well as to authenticate or put signatures in them and subsequently decode them.
A 2013 Department of Justice report on cybercrimes reveals that nearly 9 of 10 Filipino internet users have fallen victim to online malicious activity. Also, according to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group’s anti-transnational crime division, the police unit handled 2,778 cases from 2003 to 2012 of cybercrime complaints from government agencies and private persons nationwide.
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