Army warns group behind cyber intrusion: We know who you are
The Philippine Army (PA) confirmed Tuesday, Feb. 25, that it has identified the group that tried to infiltrate its cyber systems and illegally obtain military data.
Col. Louie Dema-ala, Army spokesperson, refused to name the group but noted that a full-blown investigation has already been conducted to find its members and make them pay for their illegal activities.
“What we can say is that we know the IP [internet protocol] address that they used, we know where they are, we know who these people are,” he said.
The same group also tried to breach the mail system of the Philippine Navy (PN), according to Navy spokesperson Captain John Percie Alcos.
“We cannot term it as a hacking. It's an illegal intrusion into our system,” Alcos said.
“An investigation is well underway to determine the extent of the breach. The whole Navy IT infrastructure was not breached at all and we are further ensuring that no other breaches will be occurring anytime soon,” he added.
According to the Army and Navy, the attacker attempted to illegally access their online systems through the use of credentials from compromised email accounts.
Hacking, on the other hand, involves bypassing the security and changing the system to gain access.
“There was no bypass of security when the login was made because we have identified the credentials [of the compromised account],” Dema-ala noted.
Since two major services were involved in the cyberattack, the investigation has been taken up by the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) Cyber Command.
Part of the investigation is to determine whether or not the attack was an inside job since there were compromised emails, or a foreign influence was involved.
For the meantime, the Army and the Navy assured the public that its systems are still “safe” and its personnel as well as state secrets are protected.
“We’re still safe because what they did was only an illegal access, they used a compromised account to gain entry. Maybe there are a lot of possibilities. But as to hacking of the system, it was not compromised and the system is 100 percent working,” Dema-ala said.
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