What Happened
On June 18, 2020, the Pinoy Grayhats hacker group gained unauthorized access to the website of Mabalacat City College (MCC) at mcc.edu.ph in Mabalacat, Pampanga.
MCC is a local city college that was transitioning to online services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The breach highlighted how smaller, city-level institutions were equally vulnerable.
Context
The breach occurred on the same day as attacks against Apayao State College, Bulacan State University, DepEd Caraga, and other institutions — showing the systematic nature of the Pinoy Grayhats campaign.
Lessons for Schools
- 1.City colleges need security support — local government-funded schools often lack dedicated IT security staff
- 2.Shared hosting environments are risky — smaller institutions on shared hosting should ensure isolation between accounts
- 3.Free security tools exist — tools like Cloudflare (free tier), Let's Encrypt (free SSL), and OWASP ZAP (free scanner) can significantly improve security without cost
Sources & References
All sources are independently verified. Access dates and archive links are recorded for each citation.
- [1]GitHub Registry — Community-maintained registry of Philippine school hacking incidents (May-June 2020)