Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 10) — The Twitter account of Pasig City’s Public Information Office (PIO) was hacked Saturday night, hours after Mayor Vico Sotto held a grand campaign rally for his reelection.
Minutes before 11 pm, the PIO’s Twitter page was renamed “Pasig.eth” and the account description was changed to “co-founder of @AzukiOfficial… former character art director for @playOverwatch. Pixel art enthusiast.”
In a statement on Sunday, the PIO said it has regained access to the Twitter account at 7:30 a.m.
“We apologize to the owners of the Twitter accounts who have been tagged to the aforementioned tweet and to everyone who has been inconvenienced due to this hacking incident,” the PIO said.
“While we were able to retrieve the access to the account, we are still working on cleaning it up, specifically deleting the thousands of tweets made by the hacker,” it added.
The PIO also thanked netizens who flagged the hacking incident.
“The City likewise extends its gratitude to Ms. Sei Salvador of @TwitterGov for the quick resolution of our request to regain access to our account,” it said.
The PIO has assured that it has employed mechanisms ensuring strict and limited access to its Twitter account to prevent hacking incidents.
