UP Cebu | Inquirer.net File Photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines – The University of the Philippines Cebu (UP Cebu) assured its students and alumni that no sensitive and personal information was leaked after hackers reportedly broke into its evaluation system.
UP Cebu Chancellor Liza Corro also clarified that the university’s student database system, called Student Academic Information System (SAIS), was not breached.
Reports of personal data among UP Cebu students being leaked came hours after suspicious “dummy” accounts bearing names of several of the university’s students and alumni surfaced last Sunday, a development that has also affected netizens not affiliated with UP.
READ: Student Body raises concern over ‘ghost accounts’ attacks vs UP Cebu community
“SAIS is not hosted in UP Cebu. It is a centralized system handled by the UP System IT. It was not breached,” Corro said in a text message sent to Cebu Daily News Digital.
Corro said the online portal for the student evaluation system, which was allegedly hacked by still unidentified cybercriminals, was not connected to SAIS and it has also been offline since Sunday morning, June 7, 2020.
“The subject list being referred contained supposed student login credentials to a faculty evaluation system that is independent of the SAIS,” she said.
The chancellor also said no personal information pertaining to students can be found in the electronic evaluation set except for students’ names and their SAIS ID numbers.
“Apart from the students’ names and SAIS IDs, no other personal or sensitive personal information of students can be found even if the passwords were correct,” said Corro.
“In addition, all other relevant data in the said evaluation system are encrypted. Logging in to the SAIS using the SAIS IDs and passwords in the uploaded document will not allow access to the student records,” she added.
Meanwhile, the Police Region Office in Central Visayas (PRO- 7), through its Regional Anti-Cybercrime Unit (RACU), announced that they will be investigating the proliferation of ghost accounts here in Cebu. /bmjo