Philippines thwart cyberattacks on Marcos Jnr, government agencies

The Philippines said attackers sought to embed malware in Marcos’ personal website as well as the website of the Philippine Coast Guard, and other government agencies

A Philippine official said attackers used multiple IP addresses ‘located within China’, but needed China’s help to determine if they were the ‘real perpetrators’

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The Philippines said it thwarted thousands of cyberattacks targeting the websites of President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, and other government agencies. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 8:05pm, 6 Feb 2024Updated: 10:50am, 7 Feb 2024

The Philippines has thwarted thousands of “sophisticated” cyberattacks targeting the websites of President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, the Philippine Coast Guard and other government agencies, an official said on Tuesday.

Hackers began the attacks last year and an investigation was under way to determine if the perpetrators were based in China, undersecretary Jeffrey Ian Dy of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) told a congressional hearing.

Dy said the attackers used multiple internet protocol addresses from cnc.net “located within China”, but the Philippines needed China’s help to determine if they were the “real perpetrators”.

DICT spokesman Renato Paraiso said previously they were not accusing anyone in the Chinese government of involvement.

Two servers hosting various websites of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration were hit with “brute force attacks” between December and February, Dy said.

Attackers were seeking to obtain login information, credentials and encryption keys, he added.

The attackers sought last year to embed malware in Marcos’ personal website as well as the website of the Philippine Coast Guard, Department of Justice and the DICT, which used a Google cloud service, Dy said.