PCG’s website secure amid hacking attempts -Balilo

The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) on Monday said its website remained secure following reports of hacking attempts on government agencies.

PCG spokesperson Rear Admiral Armando Balilo said the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) informed them about the hacking attempt on their website.

“A DICT personnel inquired last month if we monitored any attempt to hack our website. But so far, we have not monitored anything. Our website remains secure,” Balilo said in a statement.

“We will ensure that the website is secure, that there is enough firewall to prevent it from being infiltrated by hackers.”

PCG Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan ordered the Coast Guard Public Affairs Service to continue coordinating with the DICT and be vigilant.

“While the website is for public consumption, we do not want hackers polluting our site with fake news and making it appear that we authored the spread of falsehoods,” Balilo said.

The DICT said hackers believed to be operating from China breached the email systems and internal websites of government agencies that used a cloud service provider, most likely to gather information.

DICT Undersecretary for Cybersecurity Jeff Ian Dy said the department, in cooperation with the cloud service provider, detected and mitigated the situation from further escalation by shutting down the access of hackers.

He said the DICT was notified two weeks ago about the cyber-attack, which targeted users of the cloud service. 

Dy said the hackers targeted emails with “gov.ph” domains:

• cabsec.gov.ph
• coastguard.gov.ph
• cpbrd.congress.gov.ph
• dict.gov.ph
• doj.gov.ph
• ncws.gov.ph

Private domains were also targeted, including www.bongbongmarcos.com (pbbm.com.ph) —the private website of President Ferdinand "Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

The cyber-attack, which Dy described as “academically perfect,” was probably done by one of the three notorious hacking groups: Lonely Island, Meander, and Panda.

“These are believed to be advanced threat groups that operate within the ambit of Chinese territories,” he said. — DVM, GMA Integrated News