Leaked data sold in the dark web?

THE problem of data theft which has emerged as one of the major cyber crimes worldwide has attracted little attention of law makers in Malaysia.

Hackers are criminals who gain unauthorised access to a network and devices, to steal sensitive data, such as individual personal particulars, financial information or company secrets and are sold in the dark web.

Monetary gain is the main reason for thieves to steal data. The leak of data can be from hackers, IT vendors as well as internal employees. The 2018 Ponemon statistics showed that at least 56% percent of organisations have experienced a data breach due to a vendor’s security shortcomings.

An alleged data leak containing the information of 22.5 million Malaysians born between 1940 and 2004, purportedly stolen from the National Registration Department (NRD), has once again put the country's data security measures in the spotlight and having a negative effect.

It is shocking to know when a local tech portal Amanz reported that the database, 160GB in size, is being sold for US$10,000 (S$13,846) on the dark web.

In the screenshot shared by the portal, the seller claimed that this is an expanded database compared to the one he sold in September last year, which was only up to 1998. Home Minister, Datuk Hamzah Zainuddin meanwhile denied the alleged data leaked from NRD and said that the NRD firewall is quite strong.

It is important for the relevant law enforcement agencies to thoroughly investigate and confirm these allegations if the leak is genuine.

Never underestimate the stupidity of these criminal’s hackers.

The sensitive departments should work to continuously strengthen and refine the firewall and keep all the software up to date and by following best practices for computer use.

Hackers are becoming more skilled and sophisticated and where some countries take proactive initiative by hiring the “ethical hackers” to deal with the cyber-attacks and the dark web.

In 2021, total of RM25.5mil worth of properties, luxury cars and watches including cash was seized by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) following arrests of five suspects involved a syndicate which hacked into the Immigration Department's computer systems to issue fake temporary work permits (PLKS). The Immigration director-general Datuk Khairul Dzaimee Daud said that investigations were ongoing as it is believed that the syndicate had help from within the Department.

Prior to this incident there were threats levelled at the Royal Malaysian Navy (TLDM), US air forces as well the as Nigeria navy on highly classified documents have been leaked and have ended up on the dark web.

This has raised a heightened awareness of the need to be more secure, vigilant and resilient. TLDM is aware of the stolen military related information, and they have confirmed that is already obsolete.

Whatever it is, the hackers and criminals had successfully broken our system by attacking both cyber space and cyber security.

Prior to this, a cybercriminal claimed to have the complete set of records and personal details of 1,164,540 Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) students and alumni who studied between 2000 and 2018. The hackers wanted to prove a point and to tell UiTM to beef up their IT security in the university. The information was eventually sold in the dark web.

In 2014, Richard Huckle posed as freelance photographer and an English teacher in Kuala Lumpur was sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing scores of children and his activities in the dark web, where members exchanged child sex abuse images and tips.

So, what is Dark Web? There are three layers of Internet namely; surface web, deep web and dark web.

Like an iceberg, interestingly, the surface web contains only 4% of the Internet; the remaining 96 % is hidden in the part of deep web.

However, this is not to say the deep web are necessarily malicious. Medical records, academic and legal document are also kept and stored there for protection and privacy purposes.

What is disconcerting about the deep web is that a part of it called the dark web which is also internationally hidden and not accessible through the traditional search engine or standard browsers.

To access this level, one need to have a special browse known as Onion Router browser (TOR), originally developed by the US Navy to protect government intelligence communications. It protects users’ privacy, and hides all users’ IP addresses which makes it is impossible to be traced.

The dark web is used for nefarious purposes by hackers aiming to disrupt critical infrastructure or sensitive or classified information. It also serves as “criminal underground” to facilitate money laundering and other criminal activities.

The organised criminal sites offer their largest marketplace on the dark web for purchasing illegal products and services such as sensitive data, financial transaction, corruption, drugs, contract killers, human organs, child sex, child pornography, counterfeit money, fake passports, firearms, and stolen bank account information, etc. They even have their respective business models, advertising and collaboration among hackers and criminals and exploit organisations around the clock.

What would happen if a cyber-attack takes over the electronic voting system or the government IT network? The government has need to be proactive and introduce a more serious and dedicated cybercrime unit to tackle hackers and the dark web.

Combating criminal activities operating in the dark web environment requires the law enforcement agencies to be more proactive. It demands cyber security experts and technical resources combined with an innovative approach.

In Malaysia there is a need to raise the knowledge, skills and capability across all members of Malaysian Police Force, Malaysian Intelligence agencies and the Cybersecurity Malaysia. Malaysian Armed Forces that have set up cyber warfare regiment to strengthen cyber defence.

Law enforcement agencies, regulators and ethical hackers should form a task force with Cybersecurity Malaysia and acquire capabilities pertaining to deep web analysis. This is to enable the task force effectively conduct investigations and continuous monitoring to effectively curb cybercrime activities to ensure a safer, secure to the public and ensure our cyber-space remain immune to cyber-attacks.

The ethical hackers can add immerse value to an organisation to identify their system and security weak points and upgrade an organisation’s network by defending it from threat in cyberspace.

Even with the best infrastructure, technologies and legislation in place, the human factor that is subjective plays an important part to prevent data breaches. Therefore, integrity of the data handlers is critical to combat cyber threats. Stealing data can be done by

In cybersecurity world, tracking and attacking cybercriminals are not easy task and is a big challenge as we are dealing with skilled and expert criminals. Besides combating cybercrime, other actions such as prevention, awareness campaign and risk mitigation are equally very vital aspects in fighting against cybercriminals in the dark web.

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* Datuk Seri Akhbar Satar is the President Malaysian Association of Certified Fraud Examiners

** The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of Astro AWANI.