THE personal data of several members of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) are being dumped on the dark web by hackers who demanded but failed to get ransom money from the Philippine government.

Some of the information according to a government official even contains that of the employees.

According to an initial analysis made by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), it showed that among the information published were PhilHealth employees’ identification cards, including Government Service Insurance System IDs.

Courtesy: Jay Wennington/Unsplash

DICT Undersecretary Jeffrey Dy said they also saw copies on the dark web copies , information such as the employees’ payroll and other details such as “their regional offices, memos, directives, working files, [and] hospital bills.”

“In terms of PII (personal identifiable information), we saw some IDs, pictures, which we cannot ascertain at the moment if they are Philhealth employees, or members,” the official was quoted by CNN as saying.

Dy said that the posting seemed as “teasers” from the hackers, who are still awaiting the government ransom.

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The dark web — which can only be accessed using a specialized web browser — allows users to stay anonymous. 

The DICT had earlier said that the cybercriminals have asked for $300,000 (roughly ₱17 million) for the decryption keys, as well as deletion and not publishing data illegally obtained.

The government had said that they will stick to their policy of not paying any ransom to hackers.