Over 20,000 hacking attempts prevented by PHL gov’t before and during May 9 elections: Esperon

(Eagle News) – There had been more than 20,000 attempts to hack the automated election system before and during the May 9, 2022 polls, according to the government’s national security adviser.

Secretary Hermogenes Esperon said that because of the government’s “pre-emptive” action, all these hacking attempts were prevented and frustrated.

Police officers stand guard in front of the commission on elections in Manila on May 11, 2022. – Ferdinand Marcos Jr on May 11 claimed victory in the Philippines presidential election, vowing to be a leader “for all Filipinos”, his spokesman said. (Photo by CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN / AFP)

In the Kapihan sa Manila Bay Forum on Wednesday, May 11, Esperon said that the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and other agencies helping the Commision on Elections helped ensure that the May 9 elections would be conducted peacefully with the votes protected.

“There were more than 20,000 attempts… during the elections (and) before that, kasi pre-emptive kami. Recorded namin about 20,000 pero hindi nila nakayanan,” Esperon said during the forum.

There were thousands of attempts to hack the system, but the DICT blocked these attempts.

“Yung DICT ang laki ng nagawa niya. You know, there were thousands of attempts to hack the system? Hindi ko naman sinasabi dahil ako ay chairman ng National Cybersecurity Interagency Committee. Hindi naman namin ipinagmamalaki ito but nobody was successful in hacking the system,” Esperon said.

Last month, on April 26, combined efforts of the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) and the Philippine National Police anti-cybercrime group arrested three men who were allegedly behind the hacking of the Smartmatic system.  The men connected with the hackers group “XSOX” claimed they could manipulate the results of the May 9, 2022 elections, and had “illegal access” to the election system.

The three were connected with Ricardo Argana, a former Smartmatic employee who had been previously involved in a security breach.

Argana was hired by Smartmatic in August 2021 as a “quality assurance officer.” Four months later, a huge number of downloads and unusual traffic on the Smartmatic system, particularly on the Automated Election System. These were detected from December 28, 2021 until January 2, 2022. During an administrative inquiry, Argana admitted that he shared his credentials to another person. He was terminated by Smartmatic on January 14, 2022.

(Eagle News Service)