DepEd checks branch hacking

The Department of Education, or DepEd, on Wednesday said it was coordinating with the Department of Information and Communications Technology, or DICT, to verify a report that one of its regional offices was hacked.

Stolen were over 750 gigbytes or GB of data containing banking information and students and teachers’ information.

“We have instructed the field offices to run diagnostics and verify if there was indeed a hack,” DepEd spokesperson Michael Poa told reporters in a Viber message.

“No report as of the moment as verification is ongoing. We will provide information as soon as we get it from our Regional and Division Information Officers,” the DepEd official added.

The DepEd, however, has not disclosed which regional office was hacked.

Investigation isolated

In a separate Viber message to reporters, DICT spokesperson Assistant Secretary Aboy Paraiso said the agency is verifying the report, noting that their investigation of a DepEd regional office was isolated.

“We will update you within the day if this report is verified and its possible extent,” Paraiso said.

According to DICT Undersecretary for Cybersecurity Jeff Ian Dy, hackers believed to be operating in China breached the email systems and internal websites of several government agencies that used a cloud service provider to gather information.