The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) received marching orders from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. regarding the series of cyberattacks that hit various government agencies.
DICT Usec. Jeffrey Ian Dy shared that President Marcos wants the agency to take a proactive stance to strengthen the cyber protection of the government.
"He told us that DICT should be more proactive in issuing what to do sa government agencies," Uy said on Friday, October 13, during DZRH's Damdaming Bayan.
"Sinabi niya na to study the possibility of at least telling each government agency what they need to procure to make a more credible defense posture," he added.
Uy admitted that, currently, each government agency procure their own firewall system, and anti-virus software.
On September 22, the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) fell victim to a ransomware attack that compromised the data of many members.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) also confirmed on Wednesday, October 11, that hackers managed to breach the community based monitoring system of the agency.
PSA assured that information from the national ID and civil registry system remain safe from the cyberattack.
Uy also confirmed on Friday that the Department of Science and Technology also experienced a data leak.
The DICT chief said that the cyberattack on PhilHealth might have emboldened hackers to test the cybersecurity of government agencies
