Cyber attack on OWWA website foiled —DICT

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has prevented a cyber attack aimed at taking down the website of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).

At the Saturday News Forum, DICT Undersecretary for Cybersecurity Jeff Ian Dy said the DICT was able to “defend” various web applications related to OWWA from cyber attacks.

“There was an attack to take down OWWA [website]… but it did not materialize because we were able to counterattack it,” Dy said.

The DICT officials said the agency was able to trace the command and control center of the cyber attackers to be operating "from within China."

"So we're able to detect that the attackers’ IP address came from China Unicom. So we need to coordinate with them," Dy said.

China Unicom or China United Network Communications Group is a Chinese state-owned telecommunications company.

Dy, however, clarified that the Chinese government may not be directly involved in the cyberattack.

“What we can say is that the threat actors were operating from within Chinese territory,” he said.

Late last year, several websites of government agencies were attacked such as the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) which was hit by a ransomware attack that resulted in the leak of its data.

Also hacked, last year, were the websites of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Philippine National Police (PNP), and Department of Science and Technology (DOST). —VAL, GMA Integrated News