CYBERTHEFT | Lawmaker wants inquiry into unauthorized GCash transfers

May 10, 2023 , 08:05 PM

By Clarist Zablan

(May 10, 2023) – A lawmaker on Wednesday asked her colleagues to open an inquiry into the apparent cybertheft that hit several users of the country’s biggest mobile wallet, demanding the affected financial institutions to adequately explain the situation.

Bagong Henerasyon Congresswoman Bernadette Herrera filed a resolution in the lower house of Congress seeking a probe into the unauthorized deductions from GCash accounts reported on Tuesday, citing a need to ensure the protection of the rights of the affected users.

“I filed House Resolution 963 because I was not satisfied with the announcements, advisories, and statements coming from the financial institutions involved,” Herrera said in a statement, adding that she found GCash’s statements “inconsistent.”

“Yes, I understand their internal investigations are ongoing, but what they have said so far are not directly responsive to the concerns of the affected GCash account holders, the banking public, and the general public.”

The lawmaker wanted her colleagues to invite officials from GCash and its owners to fully explain the nature, scope, and cause of the incident, as well as their plans to address it and prevent it from happening again. The mobile wallet’s operator Mynt is a joint venture between Globe Telecom, Ayala Corporation, and China-based Ant Group.

She also wanted the Lower House to solicit the views of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the trade department, and the National Privacy Commission on the matter.

Earlier, several GCash users took to social media complaining of losing money from what they said were unauthorized transfers allegedly to bank accounts in EastWest Bank and Asia United Bank (AUB).

Responding to the complaints, GCash extended its scheduled maintenance and adjusted the deductions to return the lost money to the users.

The mobile wallet firm denied the incident was caused by hacking.

An anonymous ranking Globe official said the company had foiled the apparent cybertheft attempt after detecting a suspicious pattern of small cash transfers to only two accounts, Inquirer reported.

In separate statements, AUB and EastWest Bank also assured they are in touch with GCash to investigate what happened.

Herrera said apologies and restoring the lost money are not enough due to the harm caused by the incident to the affected account holders.

“Apologies are not enough,” she said. “There should be commensurate restitution for the harm caused that was no fault of any of the account holders. There must be electronic trails in all of these and there must be physical locations that can be traced amid all those transactions.”

(MM)

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