Unsuccessful spying attempts on gov’t email address systems, PBBM site also revealed
(Eagle News)–The country’s cybersecurity experts have thwarted recent hacking attacks against a Philippine government website, a Department of Information and Communications Technology official revealed.
Information and Communications Technology Undersecretary Jeff Ian Dy said the attacks intended to take down the Overseas Workers and Welfare Administration website in the past weeks were brute force attacks.
“Uulitin ano, hindi naman ito natuloy kasi we were able to attack it,” he said.
He said they also found the attacker’s “command and control” center was within China, specifically China Unicom.
“So, I think we will need to coordinate with them (investigation),” he said, adding they could not ascertain at this point, however, if the Chinese government was directly involved.
According to Dy, spyware or espionage activities, which may be perpetrated by threat actors or advanced threat groups of a clandestine nature that were detected by Google’s tactical information security arm, also targeted government email addresses particularly those of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), National Coast Watch (NCW) and the DICT.
He said some private domains, including President Bongbong Marcos’ site, were also subject to attacks.
However, he said these were also successfully defended.
“Ito po ay gumastos nang malaki sa research and development at sa teknolohiya upang itago niya iyong kaniyang gawain kaya tinawag nating advanced persistent threat. Itong klase ng ganitong atake, ang ginagawa lang po nito ay magmanman,” he said.
