Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 16) — After back-to-back cyberattacks on government agencies, a House of Representatives panel raised an “urgent need” to add funds for the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) to improve the government’s defenses while the Senate called for a probe on the incidents.
The House appropriations committee said it favors more funding for the DICT a day after the House of Representatives website was hacked by an anonymous user.
“We will work with our colleagues in the Senate to look for more sources of funds for the DICT,” panel chairman and AKO BICOL party-list Rep. Elizaldy Co said in a statement on Monday.
“We recognize the dire need for the DICT for resources to fight cybercrime and ransomware attacks,” he added.
Co said he is conveying to the Department of Budget and Management the “urgent need” for the funds to counter the attacks.
The lawmaker suggested taking a portion from the unprogrammed funds of the 2023 national budget to provide for the DICT.
“Maybe some of the vulnerable agencies’ savings can be authorized for augmentation spending on IT security and ransomware countermeasures,” Co said.
Meanwhile, Senator Risa Hontiveros filed Resolution 829 which called for an appropriate committee to conduct an investigation into the “troubling series of hacking and data breach incidents.”
“The breach of personal and sensitive information kept by government agencies endangers the safety and security of all Filipinos,” the resolution states.
Hontiveros cited the consecutive data breaches with the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) and the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) from late September to early October.
The National Privacy Commission last week issued a “critical warning” on the leaked personal information of millions of Filipinos affected by the PhilHealth hacking.
The PSA data breach, on the other hand, is limited to its community-based monitoring system.
The most recent attack involved the House of Representatives website where an anonymous account added a troll face meme on the homepage and altered the committee meeting schedules.
The website of the House of Representatives is now inaccessible after it was hacked by user “3musketeerz” Sunday morning.
