Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Thursday, October 12 expressed alarm over the latest data breach that hit government sites, this time the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
“The data breach involving the Philippine Statistics Authority is deeply alarming and calls for a thorough investigation following the PhilHealth hack, which regrettably remains unresolved up to this time,” Gatchalian said.
Gatchalian urged the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the National Privacy Commission (NPC) to immediately identify the culprits responsible for the hacking that compromised the data in the Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS).
“This is crucial, as the CBMS contains essential personal information necessary for assessing poverty down to the barangay level,” the senator said.
“The DICT and NPC should undertake the necessary steps to ensure that the data breach will not compromise the safety and security of those covered by the CBMS,” he stressed.
But the latest data breach staged by online hackers, after the Medusa ransomware attack on the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), emphasizes the need to provide the DICT access to confidential funds in order to successfully fight these cyberattacks.
“This incident highlights the pressing need for the DICT to have access to confidential funds,” Gatchalian said.
“Nakakabahala na hindi pa nga nareresolba ang hacking na nangyari sa Philhealth, isa na namang ahensya ng gobyerno ang nakompromiso sa online security (It is worrying that the hacking that happened at Philhealth has not been resolved, and yet another government agency has been compromised in online security),” the lawmaker lamented.
“Nagpapakita lamang ito na hindi matatag ang imprastraktura sa bansa para labanan ang banta sa cybersecurity (This only shows that the country’s infrastructure is not strong enough to fight the cybersecurity threat),” he lamented.
At the moment, the DICT said it is still investigating the data breach on PSA.