68 GB of stolen PH gov’t data found online, says cybersecurity firm

MANILA, Philippines – Cybersecurity firm Hunt. io on Wednesday, October 28, reported that it found online what appeared to be 68 gigabytes of data from databases of a Philippine government agency. In an email to Rappler on Thursday, October 29, the Hunt. io research team summarized the issue as follows: “A thief copied the data, kept a receipt of it, then left that receipt and their tools on a computer anyone online could open. That mistake is how it came to light, not a public dump of the data. ” Hunt. io added it did not have the stolen data, but rather reverse-engineered the tools used and read the logs. The exact nature of the potentially stolen files have yet to be determined because the firm did not examine the data.

The firm noted, however, that the file names discovered match case-management systems operated by agencies like the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), and the Department of Migrant Workers’ Balik-Manggagawa Online Processing System, among others. Hunt. io also previously wrote about a reported hack involving the theft of sensitive files from the Philippines’ nuclear research agency. Must Read Did hackers hit PH nuclear agency, shipping firm with alleged Navy ties? The National Privacy Commission (NPC), in a statement on Thursday, said it is “aware of the matter and is conducting an investigation to assess the facts and circumstances of the incident and determine whether any violations of the Data Privacy Act of 2012 have occurred. ” What happened? Hunt. io operates an automated threat intelligence platform which continuously crawls the internet to catalog web servers, exposed directories, and digital certificates used by malicious actors. According to the blog post by Hunt. io , the platform detected an open Python web server while it was…