Hacked

2 hacking incidents were brought to the public’s attention in the past few days. The first is the defacement of the Technical Education and Skill Development Authority (TESDA) website last Monday and the redirection of its visitors to the Smartmatic website. The image shows a man raising the middle finger following a message tribute to a fallen NPA member and accusations of abuses allegedly perpetrated by the military. The second incident is the alleged hacking activities of the Chinese government against Google. The Company reported that the hacking activities against the gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists were traced to the Chinese government. It is for this reason, along with China’s censorship policy, that caused Google to reconsider its desire to continue business in the country. Both instances arose from a hacking incident – one by the government against private citizens and the other by private citizens against the government; one in violation of privacy, the other in violation of the law.

Hacking, as defined in the E-Commerce Law, is “ the unauthorized access into or interference in a computer system/server or information and communication system; or any access in order to corrupt, alter, steal, or destroy using a computer or other similar information and communication devices, without the knowledge and consent of the owner of the computer or information and communications system, including the introduction of computer viruses and the like, resulting in the corruption, destruction, alteration, theft or loss of electronic data messages or electronic document.” Needless to say, hacking is a crime against both society and the victim. Hackers can steal information or intellectual property from its victims. If the hacking is done by agents of the Government, there would be a violation of privacy to which a writ of habeas data may be filed against the hackers. Furthermore, hacking has far reaching consequences to cyber society. Frequency of hacking incidents can lead to the questioning of the integrity of online transactions and exchange of cyber data.

Prohibitions and criminalization of hacking as prescribed in the E-Commerce Law are welcome developments in ICT. However, there is also the matter of preventing hacking which entails additional investments in cyber infrastructures to track down hackers and to strengthen existing safeguards. There is also a problem as to the enforceability of the law against government entities. Congress should address these problems in its deliberation of House Bill 6794 of the Anti-Cybercrime Bill.