MANILA, Philippines — Hospitals and healthcare facilities must employ emergency backup systems to safeguard its databases from cyber attacks amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) advised.
DICT’s advisory on Tuesday came after a cyberattack in a Czech hospital compromised its life-sustaining medical equipment.
“To prevent similar incidents, the Cybersecurity Bureau of the DICT urges hospitals and healthcare facilities nationwide to employ emergency backup systems to ensure operational continuity for both databases and infrastructure in case of outages caused by malware or cyberattacks,” DICT said.
DICT advised hospitals and healthcare facilities to report cyber incidents to the agency through the following:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Ncertgovph; E-mail: cert-ph@dict.gov.ph; Mobile: 0921-494-2917 (Smart) or 0956-154-2024 (Globe); and landline: 8920-0101 local 1708.