Malaysian credit reporting agency CTOS Data Systems is making its dark web monitoring tool available to all Malaysians free of charge for one month, effective October 4th.
The move follows an alleged data breach of public data from the National Registration Department (NRD). Malaysian news media had reported a netizen’s claim that that the database of four million Malaysians harvested from NRD were leaked and sold online. Leaked data included details such as names, emails, mobile numbers and addresses, grouped by birth year from 1979 to 1998.
It also comes on the heels of Bank Negara temporarily suspending Central Credit Reference Information System services to all credit reporting agencies in the country last week, including CTOS.
The free service would accord customers the peace of mind of knowing if their personal information had potentially been exposed on the dark web. Malaysian business and tech users can sign up here.
The agency said the National Registration Department’s data assets are secure.
CTOS describes the ‘dark web’ a part of the internet that is not indexed by search engines. This means that the dark web is largely ‘hidden’ as it cannot be accessed in a straightforward manner by regular internet users.
A large part of the dark web is used for illegal or criminal activities – for instance, one can buy stolen credit card numbers, all manner of drugs, guns, counterfeit money, stolen subscription credentials, hacked video streaming site accounts and software that can help them break into other people’s computers.
No data was breached, says CTOS
CTOS Group Chief Executive Officer, Dennis Martin said, “We would like to assure the public that as of now, there are no indications that our data assets have been breached. CTOS places paramount importance on cyber security risk and data breach protection, with all data and information in our possession protected with world-class certified data security technology.
“We have made and will continue to make significant investments to ensure that our IT and data security framework, policies, procedures, and systems are benchmarked against Bank Negara Malaysia’s Risk Management in Technology (RMiT) standard and ISO27001, as well as other global standards.”
CTOS provides digital solutions to roughly 17,000 corporate customers, including SMEs, mainly in Malaysia. Ii has about 1.3 million registered users for its CTOS ID, a free service to access credit information. It also claims to have the profiles of about 15 million consumers and eight million businesses.
