Hackers attack Senate website, extract employees’ data

Local

A HACKER group infiltrated the website of the Senate of the Philippines and extracted employee usernames and logs, according to the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

The breach, carried out by the group known as DeathNote Hackers, was first reported by the cybersecurity group Deep Web Konek on Tuesday evening. The incident has raised concerns over the security of government websites, but officials have assured the public that the situation is under control.

DICT Assistant Secretary Renato Paraiso emphasized that the breach was not alarming, as it was quickly resolved, and the Senate’s main IT system remained unaffected.

The hackers did not deface the Senate website, and the extracted data consisted only of non-sensitive information used for uploading public documents.

Senate Spokesperson Arnel Jose Bañas confirmed that the hackers obtained basic metadata, such as upload dates and file sizes, which pose no significant security risk. The accessed documents, which are publicly available, include transcripts of committee hearings and journals of plenary sessions.

"We confirm the statement of DICT Assistant Secretary Renato Paraiso that the incident is not cause for alarm," Bañas stated.

He reassured that no sensitive or confidential data was compromised during the breach. Despite this, the Senate is taking steps to strengthen its cybersecurity measures to prevent future incidents.

DeathNote Hackers were previously linked to a data breach at the Bureau of Customs earlier this year, where they compromised 4.5 gigabytes of data, including personal information of over 2,200 employees and about 80,000 customers.

The incident underscores the ongoing need for the government to enhance its cybersecurity infrastructure to protect against such threats.

In response to the latest breach, the DICT deployed its National Computer Emergency Response Team to conduct vulnerability tests on the Senate's firewall, aiming to reinforce the institution’s defenses against potential cyberattacks.(MyTVCebu)