DMW vows to pursue website hackers

 

The hacking forced DMW to shut down its system Tuesday (Philstaar photo)

The Department of Migrant Workers has vowed to track down the hackers who caused its service systems to go offline last Tuesday, forcing officers to manually process documents for overseas Filipino workers.

In a statement issued last night, DMW Secretary Hans Cacdac said the department is working with the government’s cybersecurity and law enforcement agencies to hold to account those responsible for the ransomware attack on its website.

PINDUTIN DITO

"We want justice in terms of what happened to us kahit na hindi naapektuhan 'yung OFW database kasi gusto naming mahinto ito, (even if the OFW database was not affected because we want to put a stop to this)" said Cacdac.

DMW said that while the database of OFWs was not compromised, the attack caused its website to be shut down, affecting online services such as the issuance of overseas employment certificates (OEC) and processing of new hire applications.

TAWAG NA!

All these services are now said to be online, although some netizens still complain of the difficulty of accessing them as of today.

Cacdac said the hackers were stopped before they could penetrate the DMW system and only the potential access of their system administrators was affected.

But earlier, Undersecretary Jeffrey Ian Dy of the Department of Information and Communications Technology said information was extracted from the DMW system during the attack, but the full extent was yet to be ascertained.

"A ransomware would not activate if it was not able to extract [data]. They got [something], for sure. That's what we're asserting,” said Dy.

Cacdac said the hackers were stopped before they could penetrate the DMW system and only the potential access of their system administrators was affected.

But earlier, Undersecretary Jeffrey Ian Dy of the Department of Information and Communications Technology said information was extracted from the DMW system during the attack, but the full extent was yet to be ascertained.

"A ransomware would not activate if it was not able to extract [data]. They got [something], for sure. That's what we're asserting,” said Dy.

He said the DMW is required to report to the National Privacy Commission if some personal identifiable information had been compromised.

The hacking of the DMW website was among a number of major cybersecurity breaches in the country, including last year’s ransomware attack on the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation’s system.

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