DILIMAN, Quezon City — Pro-Duterte vloggers named in the House fake news probe said sorry to lawmakers but cybersecurity attacks targeting government websites have increased following the arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte, an official of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has confirmed.

In a recent interview, DICT undersecretary Jeffrey Ian Dy disclosed that the cyberattacks related to Duterte’s arrest could be traced mostly to local hackers, many of whom are attempting to deface government websites.

Aside from these attempts, which were mostly aimed at embarrassing the government, Dy also revealed that the agency's information technology experts were able to monitor a significant increase in the activity of so-called advanced persistent threat or APT.

"APT activities include those whose 'modus operandi' is associated with Chinese actors. It is possible that they are riding on recent issues to achieve their objective, which is to gain access to critical databases of government,” the undersecretary cited.

“Their target is specific,” he added, noting that those which were attacked were digital assets of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), Office of the President (OP), DICT, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and other law enforcement agencies.

“Most of these attacks don’t really go through, but some did. There was a defacement in DA (Department of Agriculture) and some DILG (Department of the Interior and Local Government) websites,” he claimed while mentioning that since last week alone, the DICT had monitored around 70,000 to 80,000 'malicious attempts'.

“This is quite high. We’re still trying to look into patterns,” he added.

Meanwhile, Presidential Communications Office chief Jay Ruiz warned that the country is now being divided by online disinformation, misinformation and fake news.

In a House panel hearing, Ruiz told lawmakers that “what is happening (to the Philippines) right now is we are being polarized, being divided online . . . (with) Filipinos . . . being pitted against Filipinos.”
The Palace official described the division that is happening in the country (a)s similar to the discord the world is seeing in the United States.

"Neutralizing malicious online content is the big fight the nation should be waging. Lies, repeated a thousand times, becomes the truth. We have to fight lies with truth. The voice of truth should be louder than lies,” Ruiz said as he warned of the dangers of division among the population caused by online disinformation and misinformation," he stressed.

Ruiz also called attention to the danger posed by deepfakes, as well as the regulation not only of online media practitioners but of social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. However, he said the problem is that these platforms are not based in the Philippines.