House website remains shut for security upgrade

MANILA, Philippines - The official website of the House of Representatives remains shut down for maintenance and security upgrades ahead of the canvassing of votes for president and vice president next week as it continues to be subjected to attacks daily.

The attacks worsened immediately after the May 9 elections, sources said yesterday.

Sources from the Department of Science and Technology said they have alerted the House information technology department several days before the elections that its website was being hacked.

The still unidentified hackers breached the website a few times before, but the House IT department fended them off. 

However, the attacks surged immediately after the polls, with as many as 10 to 20 hacking attempts daily, the sources said.

As of yesterday, the recorded daily attacks exceeded 100. They said the source of the breaching attempts is apparently local in origin.

“But the origin of the hacks or those ordering the attacks can be foreign. They can easily mask the source of the attacks,” one of the sources said. 

The attacks apparently have to do with the canvassing of votes for president and vice president to be jointly conducted by the House and the Senate, which will convene as the National Board of Canvassers on May 25.

On election day, Senate President Franklin Drilon and Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. led the initialization of the consolidation and canvassing system (CCS) to be used for canvassing the votes for president and vice president, where the materials to be used were opened and checked, and the laptop switched on.

The initialization and inspection were witnessed by officials from Congress, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and representatives of presidential and vice presidential candidates.