KUALA LUMPUR: The alleged data breach of four million individuals leaked from a government agency web portal warrants serious attention and serves as an eye-opener for Malaysia to reinforce its cyber security.
Communications and Multimedia Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa said Malaysia should not take data security for granted even though it was recently ranked among the top 10 countries with high commitment to cybersecurity.
"Malaysia is ranked fifth in the world by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in terms of cyber security aspects which is good.
"But that does not mean that we are not vulnerable. When we create a cyberspace ecosystem, it comes with threats.
"In this particular case, there needs to be an in-depth investigation conducted, including forensic data, to see how the leakage and data theft happened and identify the culprit.
"Overall, the aspect of cybersecurity is the responsibility of the Communications and Multimedia Ministry and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC)," he said after launching the third edition of Art In The City 2021 organised by the Cultural Economy Development Agency (Cendana) at Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (KLPac) today.
Annuar added that he had conveyed to the MCMC president on the importance of safeguarding personal data which must not be taken lightly.
"If we want to make Malaysia a digital hub among Asean nations, we must develop confidence among users as well as investors.
"One of the most important aspects is to have confidence on cybersecurity," he said, and called on the MCMC to revisit the legality aspects in its Act to enable it to tackle cybersecurity threats effectively.
The Inland Revenue Board (IRB) had recently denied a claim that there was a data leak involving information of four million individuals from its web portal.
The board said that its internal investigations found no data leak from its website through the Application Programming Interface (API) conducted for the MyIdentity portal which is supervised by the National Registration Department (NRD).
It also clarified that the IRB was a user of the MyIdentity platform and not the owner of the shared system.
IRB said it was working closely with the NRD, National Cyber Security Agency (NASCA) and the National Security Council on the issue.