Statement of Secretary Sonny Coloma, 4 October 2012

We wish to clarify the following news reports:

 

1) An online news report that the “Office of the President (www.president.gov.ph) sites (was) inaccessible as of 7:50 p.m., with visitors getting an error message” (from GMA news online).

 

2) “Other websites hacked or defaced since last week included pia.gov.ph – Philippine Information Agency” (from Philippine Daily Inquirer, 3 October 2012)

 

There was a scheduled systems maintenance of the President’s website that lasted for about 5 hours in the morning of 3 October. During this period, Facebook fans and Twitter followers of the President were duly re-directed and were able to use these social media channels without any interruption.

 

There was no actual defacement of the PIA website and at no time was there a service disruption. In the morning of 2 October, a hacker apparently got into the personal email account of one of the online editors and inserted a link that appeared in one of the posted stories.

 

This specific irregularity was addressed immediately.

 

We continue to adopt appropriate security measures to ensure the integrity of our websites.