SMARTMATIC International, systems provider of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), belied Friday, April 29, the claims of Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) Executive Director Cezar Mancao that the system hackers arrested over the weekend have gained access to voter's information.
In a statement, Smartmatic said there is no truth to the claims made by Mancao, saying such information is not in the hands of the multinational company, which was the victim of the hacking incident.
"Comelec never shares this electoral data with Smartmatic. So claims that sensitive data, such as the voter list, was stolen from Smartmatic, is also unfounded," said Smartmatic.
"Smartmatic has never had access to any voter data or voter list. All data for the 2022 elections is generated by the Comelec. It is never shared with any other institution, vendor or third party," it added.
The statement was issued after Mancao disclosed that the three hackers they arrested last April 24 after making claims that they can manipulate the results of the 2022 national and local elections had gained access to sensitive voter data.
This, they claimed, as they were connected to the former Smartmatic employee, who previously surrendered to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) over his supposed involvement to a security breach.
According to Smartmatic, making such claims are unfortunate as it only helps spread disinformation that could taint the poll exercise.
"We urge caution when addressing the public. Making false or unverified claims -- even accidentally -- not only helps to propagate the same criminal scams, but also harms the credibility of the elections," said Smartmatic.
It said the arrested hackers are nothing but scammers, as dubbed by the Comelec.
"The recently arrested criminals were attempting to scam the public and candidates using non-classified data from Comelec’s website, old QA test data, and forged information," said Smartmatic. (HDT/SunStar Philippines)