Palace: ‘Unfair’ to link gov’t agencies with cyberattacks on news sites, rights group

Malacañang on Thursday accused a Sweden-based digital forensic group of unfairly linking government agencies to cyberattacks against news websites Bulatlat and Altermidya, as well as human rights group Karapatan.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque was responding to the Qurium Media Foundation's report  that cyberattacks from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and the Philippine Army targeted the three organizations on May 17, 18, and 20, as well as on June 16, 22, and 23.

"I don’t know why it concluded that such attacks is being linked to government. It is unfair to link government offices to cyberattacks pending investigation," Roque said.

"Hindi ko po alam kung ano iyong grupo na iyon at hindi ko po alam kung talagang competent siyang magbigay ng testimonya dito sa ating bansa," Roque added.

[I do not know who that group is and I do now know if it is competent to testify on matters in this country.]

He added that the Swedish group's findings will be probed.

"It is a crime to launch a cyberattack. It will be investigated," he added.

The Qurium Media Foundation, in its report, said it recorded brief but frequent distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks against bulatlat.com, altermidya.org, and karapatan.org. — BM, GMA News