The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said on Monday, Oct. 16 that the House of Representatives (HOR) cyberattack may have been carried out by local hackers.
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https://mb.com.ph/2023/10/15/dict-probes-house-of-representatives-hacking-incident
"Just from the wordings doon sa defacement ng website ng House of Representatives, it was in Tagalog so, we highly suspected these are local threat actors (Just from the wording used in the defacement of the House of Representatives website, which was in Tagalog, we highly suspected that these are local threat actors)," DICT spokesperson Assistant Secretary Renato "Aboy" Paraiso told reporters on the sidelines of the "HackforGov" Nationwide Finals 2023.
"But again, we ask the understanding of the public that we cannot divulge the names of these persons," he added.
Paraiso added that the investigation is ongoing.
"Initially, we only saw that there is defacement of the website, that there were alterations in the logs, alterations in some data in the website," he said.
"We're still conducting a thorough investigation," he added.
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'Bandwagon effect'
While Paraiso noted that the most recent cyberattacks may simply be a "bandwagon effect," the agency is still looking into the potential motivations of the perpetrators.
"We are still looking into the motive, when you suspect someone of doing this, we try to find out their motive as well," he said.
"Pero again, ang nakikita lang namin, parang nag ba-bandwagon effect lang talaga, yung iba talaga nananamantala lang. Talagang nananamantala lang ng pagkakataon (But again, what we are seeing is that it's more like a bandwagon effect, with some really taking advantage of the situation)," he added.
The DICT spokesperson confirmed that some organizations contacted the nation's ICT department for advice on their cybersecurity posture.
"May mga ahensya naman na kusang lumalapit para mag patulong to access yung integrity at saka yung security level noong mga sistema nila (There are also agencies that voluntarily seek assistance to assess the integrity and security level of their systems," he said.
In addition, Paraiso pointed out that the number of cyberattack cases in 2022 of 5,700 was a little higher than the data for 2023, which is roughly 3,000 incidents between January and October.