The Facebook page of the Philippine Coast Guard was “compromised” on Monday night by hackers who posted photos not related to the agency’s responsibility, it said in a statement.
“At around 6PM today, 26 February 2024, an unknown entity has gained access on the official Facebook page of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG),” it said.
This developed as the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) on Monday said it designated a legal and technical team to probe the alleged cyanide fishing at Bajo de Masinloc or Scarborough Shoal.
“What we are initially doing is to gather official statements from fishers, sworn statements that we can use as a basis,” BFAR spokesperson Nazario Briguera said at the Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon briefing.
Based on the initial diagnostic of the Coast Guard Public Affairs group, the hacker did not leave any digital traces on the official email address and the mobile phone used by the group to establish a security key as an additional layer of online security protection.
During that, the CGPAS was conducting a strategic communication plan workshop.
According to the PCG, its last access and posting on the page was at around 10 a.m. covering the Atimonan maritime incident of the Coast Guard District Southern Tagalog.
PCG Spokesperson Rear Admiral Armand Balilo said the CGPAS monitored two malicious short videos posted on the official Facebook page.
However, when the CGPAS tried to delete the videos, the service was alerted with a forced switch account notification.
“As of 6:45PM, the CGPAS continues to diagnose via the official Facebook account, Tanod Baybayin, as well as the official CGPAS email address, [email protected],” the PCG said in their statement released.
On Feb. 15, the CGPAS also monitored and resolved the security breach of an unknown entity on its official X (formerly Twitter) account.
In January, the PCG received an alert from the Department of Information and Communication Technology regarding the monitored hacking on the PCG website.
But upon website review, the CGPAS confirmed that no hacking activity reported on the PCG website.