The Department of Information and Communications Technology said Friday the data breach at the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) was not a ransomware attack.
DICT spokesperson Renato Paraiso said the agency’s Cybersecurity Bureau’s National Computer Emergency Response Team (NCERT) collected relevant logs from the PSA for thorough analysis and was conducting its investigation to determine the extent of the data breach and if there are pieces of personal identifiable information that may have been compromised.
The DICT said that from the initial assessment of PSA, the system allegedly affected by the breach was limited to the Community-Based Monitoring System.
“The DICT confirms that the incident at PSA was not a ransomware attack and that it is pursuing pertinent actions to apprehend the threat actor responsible for the data leak,” Paraiso said.
“As the DICT conducts its investigation of the logs obtained from PSA, the department urges the public to refrain from sharing posts that contain links to the alleged PSA data samples,” he said.
Paraiso sad clicking the said links could risk introducing malware to their devices, while those found guilty of sharing leaked data may face penalties under the Data Privacy Act of 2012.
“Further, we urge the public to implement cyber hygiene practices and remain vigilant against phishing and scam attempts,” he said.
Paraiso said the DICT would continuously extend its support and provide technical assistance and advice to government agencies to address their cybersecurity challenges, with the hopes that the agencies would implement the recommendations forwarded by the Department.
“We would like to stress that individual government agencies still bear the principal responsibility of ensuring the protection and security of their computer systems, infrastructure, and sensitive data entrusted to them by the public,” he said.