Stop hacking of govt websites, DICT urged

SEN. Mary Grace Poe urged the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and other concerned agencies to put a stop to the apparent «hacking spree» targeting government websites.

The Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth), the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the House of Representatives (HoR) recently fell victim to cyberattacks.

The senator on Monday said at stake «are not only important government records but sensitive data that could compromise the country's security.» «Data breaches also jeopardize personal information of the people, whose own accounts may be subjected to hacking or unwanted exposures,» Poe said in a statement.

The government «must invest in strong cyber security infrastructures to safeguard public records,» the chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Services added.

«Hacking must be stopped, and those responsible should be held accountable,» Poe said in Filipino.

Sen. Ana Theresia «Risa» Hontiveros pressed for an investigation into the «troubling» series of hacking and data breach incidents.

The senator raised the need to determine the «sufficiency of prevailing cybersecurity measures in government and preparedness for malicious attacks.»

On Sept. 2, Philhealth suffered a cyber attack from Medusa ransomware as hackers gained access to its online systems and demanded $300,000 or over P17 million.

She said the Philhealth data breach likely «compromised massive amounts of Filipinos' personal and sensitive personal information including names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers and health records.»

Last October 12, the PSA reported that «bad actors» had accessed its Community-Based Monitoring System, which contained personal and sensitive information.

On October 15, she said the HoR became the next victim.

«The breach of personal and sensitive information kept by government agencies endangers the safety and security of all Filipinos — leaving us even more vulnerable to increasingly nefarious schemes involving text message spams, online scams, phishing, financial fraud, extortion, blackmail and identity theft,» Hontiveros said.

She said the Philippine National Police-Anti Cybercrime Group reported