Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 17) – A lawmaker urged the government to suspend the implementation of the SIM Card Registration Act amid the surge of cyberattacks against government sites and data systems.
The law mandates the public to register their SIM to access their telcos’ communication services. Information such as names and addresses are required for registration.
“Matapos ang serye ng mga data hack, hangga’t di naipapakita ng Marcos Jr. admin na kaya nitong tiyakin ang cybersecurity ng ating bansa, hindi dapat ipagkatiwala rito ang anumang dagdag na data ng mamamayan,” Kabataan Party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel said in a statement Tuesday.
“Dapat mapalakas ang data protection mechanisms ng pamahalaan, at susi rito ang pagsuporta sa ating homegrown IT specialists,” Manuel added.
[Translation: After a series of data hacks, until the Marcos Jr. administration secures the cybersecurity in the country, additional data of our countrymen should not be entrusted to the government. The data protection mechanisms of our agencies should be strengthened, and the key is to support our homegrown IT specialists.]
On Monday, the House of Representatives website was back online after being hacked by anonymous user “3musketeerz.”
READ: House website back online after hacking
The IT team of the Senate also made adjustments in their website security after the website hacking incident in the House, Senate Secretary Renato Bantug Jr. said.
READ: Senate reports ‘spike’ in cyberattacks
In September, data from PhilHealth was compromised by the Medusa Ransomware group, which shared at least 700 gigabytes of information on the dark web and messaging app Telegram.
