14 DAY TRIAL // Philippines police have arrested a second suspect in the massive COMELEC (Commission on Elections) hacking incident that exposed the details of over 55 million Filipino voters.
The suspect's name is Jonnel De Asis, a 23-year-old systems integrator at a semiconductor firm in Muntinlupa City. De Asis admitted to being a member of the LulzSec Philippines hacking crew. Authorities arrested De Asis on April 29.
The data breach took place before the defacement, not the other way around
According to the most recent details released by Philippines police, the actual hack took place weeks before members of Anonymous Philippines defaced the COMELEC website, leaving a message on the site warning that corrupt government officials may try to abuse PCOS (Precinct Count Optical Scan) devices to manipulate votes in the upcoming presidential election.
Initially, it was reported that LulzSec Philippines hacked the same COMELEC site days after Anonymous defaced it, stole the data and dumped it online.
De Asis revealed to investigators that LulzSec Philippines hacked the COMELEC website prior to the Anonymous defacement and sat on the release of the data until it was the right time to do it.
De Asis is the second suspect police arrested
Philippines police previously arrested Paul Biteng, a 23-year-old college student from Manila, on April 20. His online hacker nickname was PhantomHacker Khalifa. Biteng admitted to being a member of Anonymous Philippines and having two associates.
Later it was also revealed that Biteng is a talented security researcher, even receiving bug bounties and praises from Facebook, and he was inducted in the company's Security Hall of Fame.
Presidential elections in the Philippines are to be held on May 9. Authorities plan to go through with their original schedule despite the hacking incident.
Below is a video from Filipino TV station ABS-CBN News reporting on the De Asis arrest.
