Press Release - Cayetano on gov't cyberattacks: 'This is where confidential funds are actually useful'

Senator Alan Peter Cayetano on Tuesday said there are only certain agencies that are clearly in need of confidential funds, one of them is the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) which is in dire need of resources to upgrade the government's protection from cyber attacks.

In the Senate hearing conducted by the Committee on Science and Technology on October 17 on the recent hacking spree of government websites, Cayetano, who chairs the Committee, cited ideas on how the DICT can improve the government's defense against hackers.

For one, he said, the DICT can use confidential funds to buy information, such as by hiring a "black hacker" as a government asset.

"Another use of confidential funds is reward. Kung ang penalty sa crime na ginawa ay kulong ng five years, then y'ung nagsumbong sa kanya may P250,000 or P500,000, it prevents major breaches of our cybersecurity. It's worth it," he said.

The DICT's budget for cybersecurity decreased from P1 billion in 2022 to P600 million in 2023, then to only P300 million this year.

"I'm not lobbying for you, but what I am saying is that there are certain agencies na talagang klarong klaro kung saan kailangan ang confidential fund. And klarong-klarong kailangan when you have something to do with security," the independent senator said.

The hearing focused on the ransomware attack on Philhealth's data system on September 22, 2023. Medusa, the group behind the attack, demanded roughly P17 million from the agency.

'Cybersecurity fire drills'

Cayetano noted that completely preventing cyber attacks is impossible, but implementing robust defenses to make it difficult for hackers to infiltrate government systems should be sufficient to deter them.

"If we can upgrade the country in the sense na, 'Hackers hindi kayo uubra dito,' then they'll go somewhere else," he said.

"You can minimize [the data they can steal] to the point na it's not worth their time kasi nga very much ready ang Pilipinas na kontrahin," he continued.

Cayetano urged the DICT to help government agencies establish a regular "fire drill" so that government offices, from the national level down to their branches, are trained to act quickly in