Baguio repels 3M cyberattacks in 2023

BAGUIO CITY: The city government’s data system fended off around three million hacking attempts in 2023, the Management Information Technology Division (MITD) of the City Mayor’s Office said.

MITD head Francis Camarao said the city’s database was successfully protected by its firewall but as attacks occur daily and get more sophisticated, cybersecurity measures need to be beefed up to ensure protection of the data collated from the various transactions in the city government.

“The attacks started last September, the month when the Medusa ransomware was very active and when a lot of government agencies were also affected,” said Camarao.

“Fortunately, the attacks against our system were unsuccessful as we were defended by our firewall,” he added.

Mayor Benjamin Magalong confirmed the vulnerability of the city’s system based on the results of an assessment conducted by a third party.

He said failure to protect the database would mean loss of data which if translated in financial terms would cost millions of pesos. It would also be a big blow to the city’s efforts to painstakingly build its database meant to speed up the delivery of services.

“Securing data is a huge challenge. We have seen government offices and local government units here and abroad that have more sophisticated systems fall helplessly to these hackers. We may be next, so we have to be proactive,” the mayor said.

Aside from data loss which leads to people’s privacy invasion and legal issues for the government, Camarao said cybersecurity breach also results in data exposure which causes unauthorized access to citizens’ data, identity theft and erosion of public trust in the government.

It also leads to financial loss, operational disruptions and legal problems.

Among the proposed solutions are the establishment of an offsite backup system, continuous training and improvements in cybersecurity, and approval and implementation of the proposed P40 million disaster recovery system “to enhance system resilience, minimize vulnerabilities, strengthen overall operational efficiency and boost performance.”