Gov't blocked over 20,000 attempts to hack Eleksyon 2022 —Esperon

There were more than 20,000 attempts to hack the system prior to and during the May 2022 national and local elections, national security adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said on Wednesday.

During the Kapihan sa Manila Bay, Esperon said the government was able to prevent these hacking attempts from being successful.

"There were more than 20,000 attempts... during the elections [and] before that, kasi pre-emptive kami. Recorded namin about 20,000 pero hindi nila nakayanan," he told the news forum.

(We were pre-emptive. We recorded about 20,000 hacking attempts but they were unsuccessful.)

Esperon credited the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the agencies that provided security to the elections such as the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Philippine National Police (PNP), and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

"There were thousands of attempts to hack the system. But DICT... I am not saying this because I am co-chairman of the National Cybersecurity Inter-Agency Committee.. We are not boasting it but nobody was successful in hacking the system," he said in a mix of Filipino and English.

For Esperon, the election conducted last May 9 was "fair" and "honest" and was generally "much in order."

"Naging efficient 'yung ating sistema sa automated election system. Very fast 'yung ating transmission at 'yung mga resulta ng local elections," he said.

(Our automated election system was efficient. The transmission and the results of the local elections were very fast.)

As regards the vote counting machines (VCMs) that malfunctioned, Esperon said it was not even one percent of the total number of VCMs that were used during the political exercise. —KBK, GMA News