Cyber Incident Victim: Philippines National Telecom Commission
Date:
Sep 2015
Location:
Philippines
Summary
The Philippines National Telecom Commission website was defaced by a local Anonymous group protesting the country's excessively slow and costly internet services, which ranked among Asia's lowest. Hacktivists criticized providers for misleading marketing—such as data-capped "unlimited" plans and unreliable speeds—while highlighting unfulfilled government promises of public WiFi. The attack rendered the site offline, compounding its history of prior breaches. At the time, Philippine internet costs were over three times the global average despite delivering speeds comparable to outdated dial-up connections.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 1 motive | 2 techniques |
| Threat Actor | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 1 actor | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On September 22, 2015, the Philippines’ National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) website was defaced by the local branch of the Anonymous hacktivist collective. The attackers replaced the site’s content with a protest message condemning the country’s excessively slow and expensive internet services. Anonymous specifically criticized Philippine internet service providers (ISPs) for deceptive advertising practices, including marketing "unlimited" data plans with hidden 800MB usage caps and failing to deliver advertised connection speeds—citing instances where promised 2MBPS speeds degraded to 56kbps. The group also denounced service reliability failures, noting ISPs frequently fell short of their 98% uptime guarantees. This incident marked the fourth known compromise of the NTC’s website, following previous breaches in 2006, 2009, and 2013. The hacktivists framed their actions as a demand for regulatory intervention, directly addressing the NTC’s failure to ensure fair pricing and quality standards in the telecommunications sector.
The attack rendered the NTC website temporarily offline, disrupting its public-facing operations. Anonymous highlighted broader systemic issues, noting the Philippines had Asia’s second-slowest internet speeds—surpassing only Afghanistan—while charging consumers $18 per Mbps, over three times the global average of $5 per Mbps. The group concurrently criticized the government’s unfulfilled pledge to deploy free public WiFi by late 2015, a project delayed until 2016 with proposed speeds of just 256kbps—a benchmark the hackers derided as emblematic of the country’s substandard connectivity. While no data theft or infrastructure damage beyond the defacement was reported, the incident underscored persistent public dissatisfaction with telecommunications governance. The NTC did not publicly detail remediation steps, though the site’s prolonged downtime suggested internal efforts to restore functionality and secure the platform against further breaches. Historical patterns indicated the commission’s recurring vulnerabilities to such attacks over a nine-year period.