By MYLA IGLESIAS and ANGELA CELIS
Hackers at the Bureau of Customs (BOC) potentially stole thousands of personal data of brokers, importers and exporters, according to the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT).
But DICT Undersecretary Jeffrey Dy assured BOC’s electronic-to-mobile system or ETM which contains the data on customs declaration and the most critical part of the network was not affected by the hacking that occurred on April 7.
Dy also said hackers no longer have access to the BOC network.
Dy said based on initial reports of the National Computer Response Team, the BOC’s ticketing system M2M (machine to machine) system and the help desk system were affected by the hacking incident.
Dy said the help desk and ticketing system contained personal identification such as email addresses and phone numbers of brokers, importers, and exporters who are interacting with the BOC.
“We are still confirming the record, it would be in the thousands…” Dy said when asked about the extent of the data that were compromised.
Investigation into the full extent of the incident is ongoing.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Ports Authority yesterday said the hacking incident at BOC has no impact on the port operations in the country.
The BOC in a social media post yesterday disclosed several of its external cloud-based online applications were breached due to compromised user login credentials.
The BOC said it reported the incident to the DICT and the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center on April 8.
The total number of individuals affected is yet to be determined but preliminary investigations suggest that sensitive information such as names, email addresses, company names, contact details and tax identification numbers may have been compromised.
The BOC said upon discovering the incident, it implemented stringent security measures, including locking all compromised accounts and servers.
Additionally, the agency’s information technology team is actively working to bolster security protocols to prevent future breaches, the bureau said.
