THE Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is committed to ensure full restoration of security and stability in PhilHealth’s systems and to safeguard government systems and infrastructure from malicious cyber threats.
In a statement, the DICT said it proactively responded to address a ransomware attack that targeted the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) last September 22, 2023.
Once the breach was discovered, the DICT, through its Cybersecurity Bureau’s National Computer Emergency Response Team (NCERT), went to PhilHealth’s head office in Pasig City and immediately implemented critical security measures.
These measures included the disconnection of workstations from the network, prompt coordination with PhilHealth to gauge the extent of the attack, and collection of relevant logs for the conduct of a thorough analysis.
As of September 25, 2023, PhilHealth’s critical web services were only accessible via their IP addresses and are currently undergoing comprehensive security scanning, while efforts to restore the functionality of PhilHealth’s DNS server are underway.
“The DICT condemns the ransomware attack carried out against PhilHealth in an attempt to illegally access the information of its members. We shall continue to investigate and monitor the acquired logs from PhilHealth’s affected systems. An extensive checklist has been prepared by the DICT to benchmark PhilHealth’s readiness to get their systems online,” the statement read.