Philippines Lower House’s Website Hacked in Latest Online Breach

The Philippines’ House of Representatives website was hacked on Sunday, the latest in a series of online attacks on the Southeast Asian nation’s government.

(Bloomberg) — The Philippines’ House of Representatives website was hacked on Sunday, the latest in a series of online attacks on the Southeast Asian nation’s government.

“The official website of the House of Representatives experienced unauthorized access earlier today,” Secretary General Reginald Velasco said in a statement on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. Steps have been taken to address the issue, he said. The congress.gov.ph website remained unavailable as of 5 p.m. local time.

Rappler on Sunday reported that the photo journal and press release section of the Lower House’s site was defaced with a trollface image, while its plenary site streaming notices displayed Youtube videos of a dancing trollface. A group called 3musketeerz claimed responsibility for the hacking, the news website said.

The Philippine Statistics Authority on Oct. 11 said it was investigating a data leak, while the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. in September discovered it was hacked by a group called Medusa, who demanded $300,000 to delete the stolen files.

–With assistance from Alfred Liu and Ditas Lopez.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.