What Happened
On June 29, 2020, Rizal Technological University's student portal (students-rtu.campus-erp.com) was breached by the hacker group Pinoy Grayhats. The breach was classified as "Security Breach / Data Leakage" — meaning student data was exfiltrated or made public.
RTU was one of the last schools targeted in the June 2020 wave of attacks, which had been ongoing for the entire month.
Broader Context
RTU was one of over 20 Philippine schools hacked in June 2020 alone. The attacks highlighted the vulnerability of Philippine educational institutions as they rushed to shift online during the COVID-19 pandemic.
How to Prevent This
- 1.Audit third-party portal platforms — RTU's portal was hosted on a third-party campus-erp.com platform; ensure vendor security is adequate
- 2.Conduct penetration testing — test all student-facing portals for vulnerabilities before deployment
- 3.Implement strong authentication — require MFA for all users
- 4.Use parameterized queries — prevent SQL injection attacks
- 5.Monitor for unauthorized data access — set up logging and alerting on all student data systems
Sources & References
All sources are independently verified. Access dates and archive links are recorded for each citation.
- [1]Secuna Blog — More than 20 Philippine schools hacked just this June — RTU listed among affected institutions
- [2]Pinoy Grayhats (Facebook) — Pinoy Grayhats Facebook post about RTU breach (June 29, 2020)
- [3]GitHub (ajdumanhug/gothacked) — Registry of Philippine school hacking incidents — RTU listed June 29, 2020 by Pinoy Grayhats, classified as Data Leakage