Senate urged to probe ‘troubling’ hacking pattern

Hacking. INQUIRER.net PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — Another senator has sought an investigation into the “troubling series of hacking and data breach incidents” that targeted several government offices.

Opposition Senator Risa  Hontiveros filed Senate Resolution No. 829, which also aims to examine the government’s existing cybersecurity measures and preparedness against cyberattacks.

“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 in her resolution lodged Monday.

READ: Portal to help PhilHealth members check if their data among those leaked

The resolution cited the report of the Philippine National Police-Anti-Cybercrime Group that it had received a staggering 16,297 reports of various cybercrime cases in just the first quarter of 2023.

“It also calls into question the sufficiency of prevailing cybersecurity measures in government agencies handling sensitive information vital to national security, and there is a need to assess the current capacity of the government to secure critical strategic infrastructure from cyberattacks and other potential threats,” the senator also said in the resolution.

Senate Resolution No. 829 enumerated the recent cyberattacks on government systems and websites of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) and Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), among others.

Just this Sunday, October 15, the website of the House of Representatives was defaced by a group calling itself “3MUSKETEERZ.”

The cyberattack on PhilHealth prompted Senator Mark Villar last month to call for a Senate inquiry.

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian also called for a thorough investigation following the PSA data breach. He called it  “deeply alarming” as this happened even before the PhilHealth case has been resolved.

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