Leaked members’ data unretrievable – PhilHealth

(REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation will not be able to retrieve the data leaked due to a ransomware attack, PhilHealth-Corporate Affairs Group acting vice president Rey Baleña Baleña said on Wednesday.

“Sa pagkakaalam ko ay hindi na po natin ito mababawi. Ang atin na lamang pong gagawin, moving forward ay hindi na po ito mangyayari sa pamamaraan na masiguro na mayroon tayong supisyenteng anti-virus software,” said Baleña during a Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon public briefing.

 (As far as I know we can’t recover it. The only thing we will do, moving forward, is that this will not happen again by ensuring that we have sufficient anti-virus software.)

Hackers attacked the website and online application of PhilHealth last on September 22, taking down the systems and blocking access for a week.

PhilHealth said that employees’ workstations and application servers were affected, with user data such as names, addresses, date of birth, gender, phone number, and PhilHealth identification number, among others,  compromised due to the attack.

PhilHealth previously admitted that it had failed to renew its antivirus software licenses in 2022 due to new procurement rules, making its computer system outdated and vulnerable to cyberattacks.

But Baleña assured the public that PhilHealth now already has a running anti-virus software, with a contract for an anti-virus provider already awarded.

He also said that the agency created a Cyber Security Task Force, a dedicated team tasked to avoid similar incidents from  happening again.

Notifying affected members

Baleña said PhilHealth members with leaked date will be duly notified.

“Tuluy-tuloy pa rin po iyong investigation po dito at kami po ay bibigyan ng DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) ng kopya po noong mga files na na-download po nila mula po doon sa pinost ng mga hackers,” said Baleña.

(Our investigation is still ongoing here and the DICT will give us a copy of the files that they downloaded from data posted by hackers.)

“Ngayon ay kapag naibigay na po sa atin itong mga files na na-download po nila, makakapagsimula na po kami ng amin pong analysis, sinu-sino po ang mga miyembro na nakompromiso at nang sa gayon, ay magawa na po namin iyon pong pag-reach out at pag-notify sa mga miyembro po na nakompromiso,” he added.

(Once we receive the files, we will be able to start our analysis, which members are compromised and then, we will be able to reach out and notify members who have been compromised.)

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