LAND Transportation Office (LTO) chief Assistant Secretary Virginia Torres has ordered the disabling of universal serial bus (USB) ports in all computer workstations of the agency to prevent the use of unauthorized flash disks that alter vehicle registration records.

Torres issued the order after receiving and documenting reports on the unauthorized updating of LTO-Information Technology database where USB ports were used as entry to the agency’s records.

“This is part of the continuous monitoring activities of the agency to protect the network from various threats,” said Torres.

“Compliance to this directive will be strictly followed in order to safeguard the LTO-IT system from unauthorized access and viruses, which could harm the entire system,” she pointed out, adding that violators of the order will be denied access to the LTO-IT system.

Torres’s directive is aimed at eradicating the use of illegal flash disks, just like the one exposed by an investigative television program.

The program took possession of two flash disks owned by an alleged site-support employee of a computer- service provider based at the Caloocan LTO branch. The USB recovered from a certain Benjamin Dacpano has the capability to alter vehicle records in the LTO main database system. 

“The disabling of USB ports on all computers is a big step to assure that the integrity of our database is protected,” Torres said.

Torres added that this move could prevent stolen vehicles from being registered and sold to innocent victims and ensure that vehicle owners pay the proper taxes due the government.

Three days after the flash disk was discovered, Dacpano quit his job.

Meanwhile, Torres is also looking into the practice of some free-port locators to use special or “Other Exempted Vehicles” (OEV) plates provided to them to avoid payment of taxes.

“We have to dig deeper into this dahil marami na kaming nakitang kaso na inilalabas ang mga sasakyan ng locators sa free port na may OEV plates na hindi na bumabalik at nairerehistro bilang ordinaryong sasakyan,” Torres said.

Based on Caloocan LTO’s record, several vehicles belonging to a Subic Bay Free Port locator with OEV plates were illegally registered as regular vehicles using the two flash disks owned by Dacpano.