Digos City tourism page joins number of hacked gov’t FB pages

May 26, 2023 - 1:40 PM
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Digos City Tourism Office
A screengrab of the Facebook page of the Digos City Tourism Office as of May 25, 2023 (Screengrab from digoscitytourism/Facebook)

Hackers have taken over another Mindanao-based government page on Facebook.

The Facebook page of the Digos City Tourism Office (username: digoscitytourism) has been heavily sharing videos of women in skimpy attires beginning May 7, nearly 20 days as of this writing.

Each of the posts bears the following caption:

“#FIFAWorldCup2023 (wilted flower and red heart emoji) I miss you (red heart and wilted flower emoji) #EP08 (red heart and wilted flower emoji) i love you”

The page also shared website links featuring explicit thumbnails of women with the caption, “Please join my new group” with kissing face emojis.

The hacking was noticed by some Pinoys as early as May 7 itself.

It gained buzz days later as more Facebook users posted about the hack.

The Digos City Tourism Office immediately noticed the hack and notified the public about it through another account that acts as a profile and not as a page.

“ATTENTION,” the Facebook account with the name “Tourism Digos” said on May 7.

“The Official Facebook Page of the Digos City Tourism was hacked. We urge people to disregard all messages, links, and internet posts shared by the [F]acebook page,” it added.

The “Tourism Digos” profile was created in 2018.

This was not the first time a Mindanao-based Facebook page was hacked.

The page of the Department of Education’s (DepEd) Cotabato Division was also recently compromised.

The hackers spammed its followers with videos of breastfeeding women in skimpy attires. Each post had the exact caption as the ones used on the comprised page of the Digos City Tourism Office.

As of writing, the suspicious posts are no longer available on DepEd Cotabato’s page.

RELATED: Another hacked gov’t page: DepEd Cotabato spams followers with breastfeeding videos | FB page of Davao transport and traffic office spams followers with lewd videos

Last month, the Facebook page of Davao City’s Transport and Traffic Management Office uploaded explicit videos of women with the same odd caption referencing the FIBA World Cup and phrases such as “I love you.”

The posts have been deleted already.

Other government accounts such as the Twitter account of the Department of Health and the Facebook page of a council under the Department of Science and Technology were hacked in April as well.

ALSO READ: DOH will pump it’: Gov’t agency’s unusual tweet earns int’l attention | They’re back: DOST council regains control of Facebook page after hacking

The Department of Information and Communications Technology previously said it had recorded at least 3,000 “high-level” cyberattacks in the country from 2020 to 2022.