KUALA LUMPUR: Huawei Technologies (Huawei Malaysia) recently joined MyDIGITAL Corporation and the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia for the 'Digital Age: Embracing Technology, Preserving Data Sovereignty' webinar.
The aim is to raise awareness among the government, its agencies, and the public on preserving data sovereignty via digital technology like the cloud.
The participants included the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), MyDIGITAL Corporation, Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU), National Cyber Security Agency (NACSA), and representatives of State Governments.
The event was conducted virtually and physically at the ISIS Malaysia headquarters.
The Ministry of Communications and Multimedia's secretary-general, Datuk Sri Mohammad Mentek said that Malaysia is making efforts to protect its digital sovereignty by introducing policies and frameworks for organisations to tighten their data security.
"As of 2021, about 100 countries have some form of existing data sovereignty laws. In Malaysia, the notion of data sovereignty is reflected in some of the existing legal and policy frameworks. These policies encompass a comprehensive cross-sectoral framework to protect personal data in commercial transactions and play an important role in helping companies address data sovereignty issues, while at the same time ensuring information security, network reliability and integrity, and secure and resilient infrastructure," he said.
MyDIGITAL Corporation's chief executive officer, Fabian Bigar urged governments and organisations to be proactive in creating and adapting systems to face the threats.
"One of the thrusts in the Malaysian Digital Economy Blueprint (MDEB) is to build a trusted, secure, and ethical digital environment. Today, there is a much greater urgency for our regulatory environment to be anchored on trust and digital-native policies which reflect the world we live in," he said.
National Cyber Security Agency (NACSA) chief executive officer, Rahamzan Hashim, emphasised how everyone should work together to protect cyberspace and ensure protected data flows.
"Seamless cooperation between industries and public sectors must be strengthened and treasured in order to address challenges and opportunities present in this new journey towards embracing the new data-driven technology and digital transformation" he added.
Moreover, the panellists included MCMC's chief technology and innovation officer, Shamsul Izhan Abdul Majid, Huawei APAC industry ecosystem engagements director, Konesh Kocchal, TM group information security's chief information security officer, Raja Azrina Raja Othman MAMPU's ICT consultant (information security), Nur Hidayah Abdullah and Malaysia Petroleum Resources Corporation (MPRC) senior manager of corporate strategy and research, Dr Moonyati Yatid.
Konesh said that well-defined policies and planned steps can improve future incident response and recovery.
Hence, different government authorities and agencies need to discuss their roles and functions in preserving data sovereignty to prepare for future incidents.
"Malaysia is moving firmly into the cloud environment, with the government driving it through a cloud-first policy. Huawei Malaysia will continue to strengthen collaboration with dedicated teams, to provide our expertise and consulting services, such as planning for cloud infrastructure, application cloudification, data enablement, and digital transformation to help the government fulfil and complete the overarching ambitions of digital transformation. These services help establish a clear plan and will lead the nation into the future-ready digital economy," he added.
Based on Huawei's experience with global network infrastructure capabilities, Huawei Cloud has developed a solution for security compliance, application acceleration, intelligent localisation, and enterprise services.
Huawei is working with Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) on Alpha Edge which ensures data locality and sovereignty for enterprises and government institutions in Malaysia.