PCG recovers compromised Facebook page, 3 ‘hackers’ identified

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Coast Guard announced on Thursday that it had recovered its access to its Facebook page after it had experienced its third cyberattack so far this year.

In a statement, the PCG said that it had regained access to its page 5:45 a.m. 

It also removed as page administrators three suspected hackers whose accounts went by the names "Fatima Hasan, Murat Kansu and Vicky Bates."

According to the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC), the hackers used malware to breach the PCG's Facebook page on Monday.

This follows an earlier cyberattack that targeted the PCG's website early February which were carried out by hackers reportedly from China Unicom, a Chinese state-owned telecommunications company. 

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said, however, that their investigation did not indicate if the attack was connected to the Chinese government.

Besides the PCG, other Philippine government agencies have also been targeted by cyberattacks which had IP addresses based in China.

The DICT said in a February 7 hearing that unidentified hackers tried to breach the government servers used by overseas Filipino workers and the Google Workspace that hosts the Philippine government's email and storage for non-confidential information.