A lawmaker on Sunday urged authorities to immediately arrest all the perpetrators behind the BDO hacking to know what may be their real motives aside from theft.

Anakalusugan Partylist Rep. Mike Defensor issued his take on the recent cybercrime incident by saying "until and unless the suspects are apprehended and interrogated in custody, we may never know their real motives, aside from the cybertheft of a few million pesos."

Defensor also wanted to know if the recent hacking is "a one-off" or "a dry run."

"Were the culprits acting on their own or were they sponsored by a bigger threat actor?" he added in a statement.

Assuming that the perpetrators are planning more attacks, Defensor said, "then their capture should effectively thwart them."

"We must also stress that the certainty of getting caught and punished is our best deterrence to other would-be threat actors in cyberspace," he added.

Defensor urged authorities not to discount the possibility that the hackers’ recent action might be just a "rehearsal" for a potentially bigger attacks against other financial institutions.

"What is clear is that the hackers succeeded in breaching the defenses of a bank’s computer system, and they now have an idea as to how much time they need to break in and escape with the loot before they are discovered," he said.

Union Bank of the Philippines (UBP) recently said it identified at least six persons with suspected involvement in the hacking of the BDO Unibank Inc. accounts.

The hacking was exposed after BDO account owners used social media to report unauthorized Instapay transfers out of their accounts.

The stolen funds were later found to have been routed to the fictitious account with UBP and subsequently salted away in virtual currencies.