Higher Education Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin said the case involving 11,891 Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) applicants’ data being leaked online was still under investigation.
"I have already asked the university to investigate the issue to prevent it from being repeated," he said during a visit to University Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (UPNM).
According to Khaled, the government will work with higher education institutions on cyber security programmes too.
"We live in the IT era and data is accessible at our fingertips," he said.
Meanwhile, Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil said that the Personal Data Protection Department on Tuesday had reached out to UiTM to obtain additional details on the matter.
“UiTM had also been asked to fill up a form for data breach notification and told to cooperate in several other matters,” he told reporters after his ministry’s monthly assembly at Angkasapuri in Kuala Lumpur today.
While he had yet to receive any updates on the matter from the Personal Data Protection Department, he expressed hopes that the actual cause of the leak could be determined soon.
Fahmi also emphasised the importance to prioritise the Personal Data Protection Act to ensure that processing of data is properly executed and that data holders truly understand the importance of data storage.
“Data needs to be managed in a more orderly manner in the future,” he added.
Yesterday, the university's management apologised for the leak of its applicants' details into the public domain and stated that the said link, where the data was made available, has been rendered inactive and an "update has been carried out."
"UiTM apologises for what has happened. Thank you," it said in a brief reply to a tweet which revealed that MyKad numbers and emails of 11,891 UiTM applicants were leaked online on a plain unsecured link.
According to the complainant, it was done to allow candidates to check their particulars using the browser search function from a sheet.
UiTM also urged the complainant to contact them through direct messaging with further relevant information.
In 2019, tech portal lowyat.net reported that a total of 1,164,540 records, belonging to students who enrolled for various courses at UiTM between 2000 and 2018, had been breached and leaked online.
The leaked data allegedly included detailed records of students from the UiTM main campus in Shah Alam, as well as from its 13 state campuses around the country. - Mkini
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