Senators chide NGCP for failing to report over 100 cyber attacks on its system

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) has detected at least a hundred attacks on its system in the past weeks, its president and chief executive officer Anthony Almeda said Monday.

“On the cyber attacks, on the past few weeks that we’re here, we’ve been attacked a hundred times already. As we speak we don’t know, it’s from the outside,” Almeda told the Senate energy committee on the national security implications and operations of the NGCP franchise.

He said NGCP has been responding fast to these attacks and other problems such as the calamities that hit the country every year.

?“We have proven ourselves that we have worked hard. We are having electricity for the grid,” he said.

Senator Richard Gordon said the NGCP should inform the government, Energy Regulatory Commission, and National Transmission Corporation of the said attacks.

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, committee chairman, pointed out that such things should still be reported.

“You are being attacked or detected attacks. These are things that the government should know. Dapat malaman namin ito kasi unang una, saan nangggaling, pangalawa, bakit. Bakit kayo lang ang nakakaalam nyan,” he said.

He said the attacks are very concerning.

“The issue here is kayo lang ang nakakaalaam. Our national security adviser doesn’t have any inkling that these attacks are happening when in fact they are tasked to assure us of our national security interest. The DOE (Department of Energy) doesn’t have any inkling when they are the general supervisor of the energy industry,” he said.

“Even the DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) doesn’t have any idea. I have to emphasize the check and balance role of the government,” he said.

Gatchalian directed NGCP to submit a report on the incidents to the Senate hearing and concerned government agencies.

Alameda said they will submit a report after assessing the situation. —LDF, GMA News