HOUSE WEBSITE ATTACKED HALF A BILLION TIMES IN ONE DAY

THE website of the House of Representatives encountered 541.66 million cyber attacks on Wednesday, March 13, 2024.

This was revealed by House Secretary General Reginald Velasco in a press conference Thursday afternoon, March 14.

He said the ICTS Team of the House of Representatives reported an unusual surge in internet traffic on the Congressional website that indicates what they call a Distributed Denial-of-Service or DDoS attack, which aims to overwhelm target websites and render them inaccessible. 

Velasco said that a staggering 53.72 million attacks were recorded between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. Wednesday originating from Indonesia, the United States, Columbia, India and the Russian Federation, which may not be accurate if they are using a VPN.

And at 2:52 p.m. of the same day, a whopping 487.93 million attacks were also recorded, from sources in Tunisia, Thailand and Greece, which again may not be accurate, which brings the total amount of attacks to 541.66 million.

The ICTS Team has assured that they have blocked and managed all of these attacks through the Cloudflare service, displayed an “under maintenance notice,” restarted the servers and continued normal operations.

It has also been reported to the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

No further attacks have been observed since, and the ICTS Team continues to monitor for unusual internet activity on the website.

Velasco commended the ICTS Team for its nimble and perceptive handling of the DDoS attacks on the website.

The Congress website has been under attack in the past from hackers but vigilantly repelled by competent IT professionals.

The House official called on the DICT to investigate these DDoS attacks and ascertain where they are really coming from, if they are local or foreign hackers or a collaboration of both.

“We must know the reason for these attacks, is it for money or for political reasons as they may have been contracted to destabilize our institution for whatever purpose,” he said.

“We call on the ICTS to be more vigilant against these attacks. The Filipino people are counting on us to bring them relevant information through our website, so it must remain up and running at all times,” Velasco said.

He assured the people that the attacks have been repelled and put under control, and no further malicious activity on the website has been recorded.

“Makakaasa po kayo na mas matindi po ang ating resolve sa Kongreso kaysa sa mga hackers na gustong sirain ang ating website,” the House official added.