INVESTIGATORS have identified potential sources of a massive data leak of more than 46 million mobile phone numbers, the minister of communications said.

Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Keruak said the probe into the leak, which was exposed by online forum lowyat.net, was nearing completion.

“We have identified a few potential sources of the data leak and we should be able to complete the probe soon,” said Salleh when met at Parliament this morning.

Sources close to the investigation told The Malaysian Insight that the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission’s (MCMC) had tracked the lowyat.net post on the leaked data to the Internet protocol address of a foreign entity.

Lowyat.net had said the person who tried to sell the personal data of millions of Malaysians to it two weeks ago was attempting to make a quick profit.

Salleh said MCMC had a meeting with all the telcos yesterday to discuss the matter.

“The police and MCMC are working together on the case,” he said.

Deputy Inspector-General of Police Noor Rashid Ibrahim  said the police were looking into the matter.

“Right now the Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) is looking into this matter.” he said today at Kuala Lumpur police headquarters. 

“We have to go through the MCMC and telcos, and we will look into all aspects.

“There are black hats everywhere, maybe they made use of the vulnerabilities of these telcos,” he said, referring to hackers who operate in the Dark Web, a hard-to-regulate part of the Internet where illegal activities thrive.

Lowyat.net has said the data leak included post-paid and pre-paid numbers, customer addresses as well as SIM card details from all major operators including DiGi, Celcom, Maxis, Tunetalk, Redtone and Altel.

“Time stamps on the files we downloaded indicate the leaked data was last updated between May and July 2014 between the various telcos,” Lowyat.net said, as reported by TheStar.

The site said the details regarding the data had been forwarded to MCMC.

It said it also shared with MCMC how Lowyat.net managed to obtain all the data.

Besides telcos, the databases of the Malaysian Medical Council, the Malaysian Medical Association and the Malaysian Dental Association were also compromised.

News about an alleged data leak was first made public in a report titled “Personal data of millions of Malaysians up for sale, sources of breach still unknown”, published on the popular technology news site on October 19.

The report claimed that the personal data of millions of Malaysians from the databases of an online recruitment portal and medical associations, as well as over 50 million records of customer data from various telcos, were up for sale online.

The information taken from telcos reportedly included customer names, billing addresses, mobile numbers, and identity card numbers.

The article was removed under MCMC instructions soon after it was published that day. The regulator later explained in a statement that the order to take down the report was a “preventive measure”.

Lowyat.net then restored the original article on October 20 with MCMC’s approval minus the leaked data. – November 1, 2017.