The Chinese government is willing to cooperate with the Philippines in addressing a recent cyberattack against a government website which was allegedly done by hackers from China, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Ivan Uy said Thursday.

At a Palace briefing, Uy said that China wants to help the country investigate the hacking attempts against the website of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) and of other government agencies.

“Yes, actually, they have reached out to ask if we can do some cooperation, because it’s actually both ways. Cooperation has to come, you know, as a mutual activity. So, they are willing to help, they have mentioned that if we can share with them what happened, they can help identify where the attack came from and who launched it,” Uy told reporters.

Uy said that authorities have arrested some Chinese scammers who are targeting Mandarin-speaking countries including citizens of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore.

“What China wants is that once we prosecute these people, eventually, they want them to be deported to their country, so they can properly prosecute these people who are attacking their citizens and compromising also their cybersecurity,” he said.

Uy said that the government was open to working with other countries since cybercrimes are rampant all over the world.

“We are open to working with everybody. These actors, they are everywhere… So there are many criminal organizations, mercenaries, and cyber-hackers that are hiding in different countries and who are using their talents in evil ways. So it’s important to have coordination among different countries to work together and go after these groups,” Uy said.

In a forum on Saturday, DICT Undersecretary Jeff Ian Dy said that the attempted cyber attack against the OWWA was done by hackers "who were operating from within Chinese territory.”

The attackers were from China Unicom, a state-owned telecommunications company, he added.

Dy said that the hacking attempt “did not materialize” because they were able to counterattack it. Jaspearl Tan/DMS