mmalabanan
MANILA, Philippines. Registered voters in the Philippines are now prone to fraud and other risks following the hacking of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) website on March 27, a group of threat defense experts believes.
According to an articled published by TrendLabs Security Intelligence Lab, the massive data breach has apparently leaked the whole database of Comelec. Based on their findings, a number of sensitive personable identifiable information (PII) such as fingerprint data and passport information was accessed. Information from the data breach can be used by cybercriminals to access bank accounts, to perform blackmail or extortion, for phishing emails, and to get further information about a specific individual.
Moreover, TrendLabs considers the possibility of data tampering that could potentially affect ballot count since the Comelec website shows real time ballot count during the actual election. However, the government agency claims that this function will be performed on a different website.
Still, the Comelec has assured voters that their votes will be protected and no sensitive information was compromised during the hacking.
Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez told reporters: “The situation of the Comelec website is different from the results website that we will be launching… the election results website will be very secure. It will be hosted somewhere else. It will have its own set of security features which are different and of a higher quality than the one we are using now.”
