MANILA, Philippines – Nullsec Philippines, a hacktivist group, claimed responsibility for defacing the website of the Philippine Senate.
On Wednesday evening, June 10, Nullsec announced on Facebook that it had defaced and changed the look and content of the Senate website, even posting that it was watching the Senate.
The defacement turned the Senate website black, with text protesting the current chaos in the institution. “The Filipino people entrusted you with power, responsibility, and the duty to serve the nation — not personal interests, political dynasties, or corrupt networks. Every peso lost to corruption is a meal taken from a family, a classroom left unfinished, and a future denied,” Nullsec said.
The group added: “Transparency is not optional. Accountability is not negotiable. Public office is not a shield from scrutiny. The digital generation sees, records, investigates, and remembers. Information cannot be buried forever, and public trust cannot survive without honesty.”
As of noon of Thursday, June 11, the Senate website remains unavailable and is under maintenance.
Nullsec Philippines, on its Facebook page, calls itself a hacktivist collective “engaged in coordinated cyber campaigns, including mass website defacements and exploitation of security vulnerabilities, carried out as digital protest.”
Defacement confirmation
The Senate’s Electronic Data Processing and Management Information System (EDP-MIS) confirmed the defacement on Thursday, June 11, but said no confidential or sensitive information had been compromised. “The website primarily contains publicly available documents and informational materials intended for public access,” the EDP-MIS said.
“Upon detection of the incident, our technical team immediately initiated security protocols, contained the issue, and commenced a comprehensive investigation to determine the cause and extent of the unauthorized activity,” it said.
It added, “Additional security measures are also being implemented to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.”
Meanwhile, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) also said on Thursday that an “initial assessment indicates that the incident was limited to the defacement of the website’s public-facing pages.”
While there is currently “no indication that sensitive or confidential data was compromised,” the DICT said “a thorough technical investigation is ongoing, and findings will be validated before any conclusions are drawn.”
The DICT added that it, alongside the Senate, the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center, and relevant law enforcement agencies, will be “conducting forensic analysis to determine the root cause of the incident and identify the threat actors responsible.”
The Senate website defacement follows a leadership shake-up which ousted Alan Peter Cayetano as Senate president and elected Win Gatchalian as Senate president pro tempore, and a recent security threat notices prompting the Senate to work from home. – Rappler.com
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