The continuous Malaysian data breach

Digital life in Malaysia is becoming like an endless story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. As in the fairy tale, Malaysians are coming home to find that their privacy has been invaded. But in this version Goldilocks comes back whenever she wants and the government would like the Bears to keep the story to themselves.

Last week’s revelation of the biggest data breach in Malaysian history might have been expected to create an outraged response from the public. Low Yat Forum reported that it had found a file for sale on the internet containing the names, addresses and phone numbers for nearly 50 million Malaysian residents and visitors. The data had been stolen from numerous sources and compiled over a period of up to 5 years - during which time it had evidently been resold many times.

The sad thing is that the authorities almost certainly knew about these repeated data breaches and had chosen not to inform the victims.

LowYat contacted the government regulator when they discovered the data for sale. They claimed that they only decided to publish the story when the regulator didn’t respond to their notification. The regulator's immediate reaction was to order Low Yat to take the story down. The government has subsequently relented but it has still not made an official announcement to the affected individuals or issued advice on what they should do. Instead, it seems to be trying to suppress the news.

The mainstream media finally published the story on the 30th October. And yet the press didn't comment on the obvious fact that the victims had not been informed.

Jobstreet, one of the affected websites, wrote to its customers on 31st October to advise them of the breach. To date, it doesn’t seem as if any of the other organisations have contacted their customers. Just a wall of silence.

So Malaysians can only conclude that their personal information has been for sale on the internet for years, most likely the government knew about it, and chose not to tell them.

And we have a clear illustration of the reason why Malaysian consumers don’t trust the internet.

I hope the Malaysian Bears have started locking their doors.