The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) said on Wednesday, April 3, that the agency is treating the hacking incident with “utmost seriousness.”
“We recognize the concerns this incident may raise among our stakeholders and the public, and we want to assure you that we are treating this matter with the utmost seriousness,” DOST Secretary Renato U. Solidum Jr. said in a statement.
Solidum confirmed that the agency’s IT infrastructure was hacked on April 2.
It was earlier reported that the science department was compromised by a threat actor named "Ph1ns."
The hacker was said to be operating under the banner of “#OpEDSA,” which executed a “meticulously planned” infiltration and gained access to critical infrastructure, including hypervisors, Network-Attached Storage, and routers, and even obtained Domain Administrator privileges.
READ:
https://mb.com.ph/2024/4/3/hackers-strike-department-of-science-and-technology-servers
The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) also said the hackers caused havoc by erasing 25 Terabytes of data.
However, the DOST assured that it is collaborating closely with the DICT to “actively monitor the situation.”
“Our technical teams are working diligently to address any vulnerabilities and reinforce our cyber defenses,” DOST added.
The science department further reassured that it has isolated the affected systems and initiated a recovery plan to revert the system and assess the impact of the incident.
“We will continue to enhance our cybersecurity protocols to prevent similar incidents in the future,” it added.