The Department of Personal Data Protection (JPDP) confirmed today that there was no breach of personal data when its security was attacked by the hacker collective, R00TK1T. Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo says the confirmation was provided by the telco to the department, after it was verified by digital forensics.
“In response to the threat by R00TK1T to shut down Maxis’ network, the company took proactive measures to validate this claim. It was determined that only the Maxis Interactive Retail Assistant (MIRA) Queue Management System at a specific Maxis branch was affected” Deo said. “This system operates as a standalone and is not connected to any critical Maxis systems,” he further explained during a Q&A session at Dewan Rakyat today.
To quickly recap, the hacker collective R00TK1T launched an attack on Maxis’ digital infrastructure earlier this year and more specifically, its Kulim network. At the time, the group claimed to have breached the telco’s firewall, as well as made off with some amount of data.
Not long after, and in that same month, R00TK1T attacked the servers of the Ministry for Women, Families, and Communities (LPPKN) and claimed to have made off with 27TB worth of personal data. In addition, it also says that it had successfully breached the Central Database (PADU) servers, a claim that Rafizi Ramli, Minister of Economic Affairs, denies ever happened since the system’s launch on 2 January.
