Trust Management

Name: Yna Gabrielle P. Foronda | Date: 5 - 11 - 2024

Course/Yr/Blk: BSCS - 3A | SUBJECT: CS 121 - Information Assurance and Security

Choose a recent data breach incident from news sources or online articles. Reflect on
the significance of trust in digital transactions and the challenges organizations face in
maintaining it amid evolving cybersecurity threats.

Last month in April the National Privacy Commission was notified by the Department of
Science and Technology (DOST) about a data breach. On April 24, 2024, an on-site
investigation was conducted at their central office and initial findings indicate that the
breach included personal data of approximately 597 data subjects, all of whom are
DOST employees, and research plans, designs and schematics that amounted to around
2TB of data. This was not the first as last year DOST was among the three government
agencies that had a ransomware attack, along with the Philippines National Police
(PNP) and Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

Based on this incident and even the past incidents mentioned or those that were not
included, we can identify that in this digital age we are facing a problem with what we
call, trust. The importance of trust in systems and transactions should not be
underestimated. It lays the foundation for the many digital transactions that we are
now attempting to transition to. Especially in the case that we try to transact with
government agencies, we would expect that our personal data to be secure, thus these
data breaches happening would make us hesitant to utilize online government services.
We face a challenge on how this trust can be maintained as government agency
systems still use old protocols and designs compared to how fast hackers are
constantly trying to develop new methods to infiltrate. As the saying goes, “Fool Me
Once, Shame on You; Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me”, the multiple occurrences of these
data breaches makes us all the more concerned and our trusts diminished. There should
not have been a first time to start with but a second, a third, and so on and so forth,
should indeed be called-out. Apart from personal data, research plans and designs
were also collected that could possibly have sensitive information or bring up concerns
if put out in public.

In conclusion, this recent – and not the first – at the DOST serves as a reminder of the
importance of cybersecurity in maintaining trust in this rapidly evolving digital age. The
Philippines should start investing more in modernizing these systems and security –
instead of focusing on and modernizing jeepneys ASAP – and prioritize data protection
to secure not just the information of its constituents but also their trust.

Articles:
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1925924/hackers-gain-access-to-sensitive-dost-data
https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/2024/5/11/lp-may-have-points-of-unity-with-new-ad
min-alliance-analyst-1022
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1925806/2-terabytes-of-dost-data-breached-in-hacking-in
cident#ixzz8WpEJLNW9
https://privacy.gov.ph/press-statement-of-the-npc-on-alleged-dost-data-breach/