The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on Wednesday, Oct. 11, announced that it launched a probe into the alleged data breach in its Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS) following a certain actor’s post on social media.

“The agency is taking additional preventive and containment measures to ensure the security and integrity of all systems and databases that it manages, including shutting down and isolating the system known to have been affected,” the statistics agency said in a statement.

The PSA assured the public that neither the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) nor the Civil Registration System, (CRS) have been affected.

“The PSA warns the public that social media posts with the alleged sample data include links that contain malware that may be used by cybercriminals and bad actors to perpetuate other illicit acts. Therefore, the public is strongly advised not to click on such links,” it said.

The statistics agency underscored its commitment to ensuring the integrity of its data and the confidentiality of information it gathered through surveys, censuses, PhilSys, and CRS.

PSA said it has coordinated the matter to the Compliance and Monitoring Division of the National Privacy Commission (NPC), the National Computer Emergency Response Communications Technology (DICT), and the Anti-Cybercrime Group of the Philippine National Police (PNP).

On X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday, Oct. 8, Deep Web Konek, a group focused on informing the public on data leak, posted a Facebook post allegedly uploaded data containing “highly sensitive information” from PSA following a breach of about 42 billion data.

#CyberThreat: A Facebook Post was allegedly uploaded that contains highly sensitive information from @PSAgovph due to a data breach of 42 Billion of data.#DeepWebKonek pic.twitter.com/S07xsx7OuE

— Deep Web Konek (@deepwebkonek) October 8, 2023