Palace Already Investigating ‘Comelec Data Hacking’

Malacanang addressed on Saturday the “hacking” of Comelec data saying its IT experts are investigating whether there is a breach in the Palace’s security protocols and if hackers were able to use the Malacanang Internet domain.

Netizens have complained that Malacañang downloaded the Comelec data.

In a radio interview on Saturday, Undersecretary Manuel Quezon of the PSDSPO said Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. was informed on the evening of April 21 at 9:55 p.m of social media screen shots that purportedly showed OP’s mail server being used to torrent and seed the Comelec data.

Quezon said that as of yesterday morning, there was continuing screen shots that the torrent was still being downloaded or seeded using the address.

The Office of the President-MIS department is now conducting investigation on the Palace’s subdomain ‘mail.malacañang.gov.ph’, which has been delegated to as specific mail server under the OP-MIS department since May of 2011.

The OP-MIS is trying to find out if the server was used to download and seed the torrent, if the server was compromised or if a remote client was using the mail server to access the Internet or whether hackers intentionally forged this host name to appear as ‘mail.malacañang.gov.ph’ with malicious intention, Quezon told dzRB Radyo Ng Bayan.

But so far, Quezon said that the OP-MIS said no unusual activity has been detected which suggests at this point the possibility of a malicious forgery.

According to the OP-MIS department, it has not detected any unusual activity. So it appears that somebody intentionally forged the name to make it appear mail.malacanang.gov.ph, according to Quezon.

“Now, in terms of accountability. It will be the Executive Secretary to determine the accountability if proven that someone indeed used the mail server to download the Comelec data,” he said.

“And as far as prevention is concerned, as Secretary Coloma said in his briefing yesterday: ‘This matter is being looked into as part of continuing efforts to improve IT security protocols,'” he added.

The ongoing investigation is still not conclusive and they are waitting for the final report of the OP-MIS, he said. (PND)