AMID an ongoing investigation by the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) over an alleged data breach, mobile wallet provider GCash claimed that not one data was compromised even as it assured that stored funds are safe.
“Safety and trust are our top priorities. We are very proactive in making sure that our customers’ accounts and money remain safe,” says GCash chief marketing officer Neil Trinidad on the sidelines of the GCash Futurecast 2024 last Friday.
Futurecast is an annual event where GCash unveils innovations in financial technology (fintech) in the country.
According to Trinidad, GCash checked its know-your-customer (KYC) immediately after the supposed attempt was made and found no indication of any data compromise.
Previously, Deep Web Konek claimed in an article 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.
The Gcash corporate official however said that their mobile wallet system has more than enough security features and that such an attempt – if ever there really was, would fail.
“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,” he further averred.
More than the security features of GCash, Trinidad cited the need to educate its users on keeping MPINs and OTPs safe, and the need to cooperate with the CICC, Philippine National Police, and National Bureau of Investigation.
GCash reported to have taken down 1,900 phishing sites from January 2023 to May 2024, and rejected 3.2 million account takeover attempts and blocked 5.5 million fraudulent GCash accounts for the same period.
To make life a lot easier for its mobile wallet users, GCash also 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.(ANGEL F. JOSE)
