BY WENDELL VIGILIA and RAYMOND AFRICA
THE House of Representatives has voluntarily taken its website offline yesterday as IT in-house experts “detected suspicious and unusual activities that necessitate further scrutiny.”
House Secretary General Velasco said in a statement: “We regret to inform the public that the official website of the House of Representatives has been voluntarily taken offline once again. Despite our recent security enhancements, we have detected suspicious and unusual activities that necessitate further scrutiny.”
Velasco said the website was taken down at exactly 12:58 p.m. “as a precautionary measure to double-check and reinforce the cybersecurity measures we have undertaken, ensuring no vulnerabilities remain.”
At the Senate, Senate Secretary Renato Bantug Jr. said several attempts to hack the upper house’s website was detected on Sunday, the same day that the cybersecurity House’s system was breached.
Bantug said a “spike in attacks” on its website was detected during the weekend but assured the public that the hackers were not able to penetrate the system after certain adjustments were made on its system.
“Per our IT, we recorded a spike in attacks last Sunday. As soon as we learned of the HRep website hacking, our team went on alert and (did) continuous monitoring. The Senate has perimeter and application firewall, but our tech team also made adjustments,” Bantug said.
Velasco said: “Our primary concern is to guarantee the safety, integrity, and reliability of our digital platform for the citizens we serve.”
“We understand the inconvenience this might cause and appreciate the public’s patience and understanding as we work diligently to address these concerns. Our commitment to transparency and open communication remains unwavering, and we will provide updates as soon as we have more information,” he also said.
Hackers, who called themselves “3MUSKETEERZ” defaced the lower house’s website before noon on Sunday with a “YOU’VE BEEN HACKED” and troll face comic meme posted on the left side of the landing page, www.congress.gov.ph. It was fully restored last Monday, more than 24 hours after the attack.
Senate majority leader Joel Villanueva said the attempt to hack the Senate’s website “is truly concerning and we commend our IT team for their swift action in heightening its perimeter firewall to prevent hacking.”
He said the attempt to hack the Senate website and other hacking incidents on government systems calls for an intensified cybersecurity action.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said hackers are testing the government’s cybersecurity capability and called on government offices to hire experts who can beef up measures to prevent hackers from penetrating the systems of critical infrastructures, such as water supply.
“Hindi coincidence ang nangyayari. May concerted efforts to test our capability, how we respond. Cyberattacks are real, huwag natin hintayin pa ang mas malalim bago pa tayo umakto (These are not merely coincidence. There are concerted efforts to test our capability, how we respond. Cyberattacks are real. Let us not wait for bigger things to happen before we act),” Gatchalian said in an interview with the Senate media.
He said local government units should also heighten their respective cybersecurity programs to prevent similar attacks.
Gatchalian said the government should study how to attract cybersecurity officers to apply for the job in government agencies since the salary being offered is way too low.
Likewise, he said he will propose that the Senate retain the P300 million confidential funds stripped by the House of Representatives from the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) so it can step up its cybersecurity technology.
Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano said government offices can learn from local banks which have very good cybersecurity programs.
BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION
Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco yesterday confirmed there were attempts to hack the system of the Bureau of Immigration, “but they (hackers) were not successful.”
He said the failed cyberattacks were discovered by the DICT who conducted a quarterly evaluation of the agency’s system.
He said the BI has an agreement with the DICT for the conduct of regular checks on their system’s readiness against cyberattacks.
He said the agency is upgrading its system and defenses against cyberattacks to ensure that there will be no cybersecurity breaches. — With Ashzel Hachero
