by Martin Sadongdong, Manila Bulletin
An official social media account of the government’s primary inter-agency council on disaster response has been hacked on Tuesday afternoon, Oct. 11, raising questions as to the capability of the government to deter cyber attacks.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) announced that its official Facebook page was hacked around 3 p.m.
“Necessary arrangements are in place to retrieve our account and investigate the matter. We uphold data privacy and security, alongside the welfare of the members of the NDRRMC,” it said in a press statement.
The hacking incident occured just as Tropical Depression “Maymay” was headed towards Luzon and threatened to pound provinces. The NDRRMC, which often posts warnings and updates on impending calamities, made its last Facebook post last October 4.
The NDRRMC apologized for “any inconvenience or confusion” that the incident might bring to the public and its stakeholders.
This was not the first time that the NDRRMC was targeted by hackers.
Ten months ago, the official Twitter account of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) — the implementing agency of the NDRRMC — had also been hacked.
The OCD’s verified Twitter account @civildefensePH posted at least five tweets about cryptocurrency and bitcoin on the Twitter pages of billionaire businessman Elon Musk and his aerospace company, SpaceX, on the midnight of Nov. 14, 2021.
The hacker also changed the OCD’s Twitter handle from “Office of Civil Defense” to “Elon Muskx,” as well as its profile picture to the photo that was the same as Musk’s Twitter profile.
It was not immediately clear whether or not the hacker that controlled the OCD Twitter page in 2021 was the same hacker that attacked the Facebook page of the NDRRMC since the Council offered very little details on the recent hacking incident.
