The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) in Bacolod City reminded Facebook users on Wednesday, August 23, to remain vigilant amid reports of cyber attacks targeting pages of local government units (LGUs) in Negros Occidental.
The latest incident involved the official Facebook page of the town of E. B. Magalona, which was hacked on Tuesday, a day after the office of Rep. Jose Francisco Benitez (3rd District) reported unauthorized access to the lawmaker’s “Cong. Kiko Benitez” page.
“Public pages are really the targets of hackers, these are vulnerable. For DICT, we always remind the public to secure their accounts,” said Mary Jane Agonace, provincial director of DICT-Negros Occidental.
She said users must be mindful of the privacy settings that would allow them to secure their accounts and regularly check personal details such as registered email addresses and mobile phone numbers to ensure that these still belong to them.
“There may also be friends added or messages sent, but not by the user. Those are the signs that an account has unauthorized access. That’s the time the account owner or user should already update information especially the change password,” Agonace said.
She added that owners or users can report and seek investigation on the unauthorized access to the authorities under the Negros Occidental Provincial Cyber Response Team.
In Negros Occidental, DICT partner agencies that cater to such requests include the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine National Police Regional Anti-Cybercrime Unit.*