Photo Release

Preventing cyber attack: Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano suggests to the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to adopt a reward system to compensate anyone who can give information about the hacker and impose a stiffer penalty against the culprit. ”It prevents major breaches on our cyber security and it’s worth it,” Cayetano said, referring to the reward system. During Tuesday’s hearing October 17, 2023, Cayetano presided over the Committee on Science and Technology to discuss the recent cyber attack incidents on the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) website and all other government agencies. ”If we can upgrade the country in the sense that hackers will not work here...you can minimize to the point that it is not worth their time (attempting to hack us),” he said, adding that the purpose of the hearing is to find a solution to resolve and how to prevent any cyber attack against government websites. Last September 22, 2023, the PhilHealth's website was reportedly hacked by the Medusa ransomware group, which is a relatively new group of hackers, but is one of the most feared groups in the world for their sophisticated attacks on large organizations. (Senate PRIB photos)