Senator Risa Hontiveros has filed a resolution asking the Senate to investigate the troubling series of hacking and data breach incidents on government websites.

In filing Senate Resolution No. 829, Hontiveros said she finds it necessary to look into the current status of cybersecurity measures in government and the preparedness of the state to address malicious 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,” the senator said.

“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,” she said.

‘Stop hacking spree’

Sen. Grace Poe, for her part, urged the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and other concerned agencies to put a halt to what is turning out to be a hacking spree of government websites.

“At stake are not only important government records, but sensitive data that could compromise the country's security,” Poe said.

She said the government must invest in strong cyber security infrastructures to safeguard public records.

“Hindi pwedeng business as usual at maghintay na lang sa susunod na biktima ng data breach. Kailangan matigil ang hacking at mapanagot ang mga salarin (We can’t just say its business as usual and just wait for the next victim of data breach. The hacking incident should stop and the perpetrators should be prosecuted),” she said.

Other senators have also expressed alarm over the incident which started when the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) suffered a cyberattack from Medusa Ransomware last Sept. 22, 2023. Hackers were able to gain access to PhilHealth’s online systems and demanded $300,000 on Oct. 2, 2023.

PhilHealth officials have admitted that the hacking incident compromised the data in its custody and likely resulting to an unprecedented information leak of Filipinos’ personal and sensitive data.

After PhilHealth, the website of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) was also attacked on October 12 and compromised its Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS) which also contained personal and sensitive information.

Three days later, on October 15, the House of Representatives’ website also became the next victim of a cyberattack.