Hacktivists not violating new cyber law

MANILA, Philippines - Hack attacks launched by an anonymous group of hacktivists against government websites are not considered as a violation of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, the government said Wednesday.

"The recent website defacements are essentially the expression of our hacktivists on what they believe to be an unjust law. We understand that they have legitimate grievance," said Undersecretary Louis Casambre, executive director of the Department of Science and Technology's Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO).

Casambre added that the government is treating the attacks carried out by the group calling itself as "Anonymous" as "more of vandalism rather than a cybercrime as defined in the [Republic Act] 10175."

The ICTO chief said that as long as the group is not disrupting the online services of the government, the government will not pursue the hacktivist and file cases against them under the new cybercrime law.

The hacktivists' group launched "Operation Philippines" on Wednesday, the first day implementation of the Cybercrime Prevention Act, targeting at least 20 government websites.

As an initial salvo, the group carried out pre-dawn attacks on the websites being maintained by Malacanang, www.gov.ph, and those being maintained by the Senate and the House of Representatives.

More websites were also defaced including that of Sen. Vicente Sotto III, who is being tagged as responsible for the inclusion of the online libel provision in the new cybercrime law.

Casabmre said that the government will pursue the group only after they have attacked websites that are offering online services to the public.

"As long as Government services to our citizens are not disrupted, we do not intend to pursue this matter. However, if the other government agencies that have been affected wish to, we cannot stop them," he said.

He added: "This recent spat of hackings only underscore the need for our government web administrators to improve their cybersecurity measures on their websites."

He said that as of now, the government has no cybersecurity policy, which will be addressed by the new cybercrime law.

"We can now have one as the national cybersecurity plan to be developed by the CICC (Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center)," he said.

Casambre had said that Filipino netizens should give the new cybercrime law a chance. He said that the government will address the concerns of the online community in the creation of the new law's implementing rules and regulations.