MANILA, Philippines, April 25, 2016 – Following the cyber theft of voters’ records from the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) database, PLDT and Smart Communications are encouraging their subscribers to take precautions to protect their online privacy and security.

 According to published reports, the data breach disclosed voters’ personal information such as their names, birthdates, home and email addresses, the full names of their parents and in some cases passport details. These information can be used for identity theft and other fraudulent activities.

 As a starting point, here are some simple, practical tips to ensure your peace of mind by properly managing your online passwords.

Update your passwords. Make it a habit to change passwords regularly for all your online accounts – email, social (like Facebook and Twitter), online banking accounts among others.

Make your passwords strong. This means creating passwords with a mix of letters and numbers, with a mix of capital and lowercase letters, and with symbols like “&” or “@”. Best to use passwords with at least six letters, numbers and symbols.

Avoid predictable passwords. Like birthdays (yours, your spouses or children, etc.) Or common number or alphabet patterns like “123456” or “abcdef”. Or, predictable words like “password”.

PLDT and Smart are stepping up measures to strengthen your online security and will periodically share information that can help subscribers protect themselves. When managing information regarding your PLDT and Smart accounts, please use only our official channels.

For PLDT, these are: the official websites pldt.com, and pldthome.com and its official social media accounts on Facebook are facebook.com/PLDTpublicaffairs, facebook.com/PLDTHome, and facebook.com/SMENation, and on Twitter, @PLDTHome, @PLDT_Cares, and @PLDTMedia.

For Smart, these are: the Smart hotline *888, the official Smart website smart.com.ph, and the official social media accounts facebook.com/SmartCommunications, twitter.com/LiveSmart and twitter.com/SmartCares.