Global IT outage: 14 M'sian entities, including five govt agencies affected, says Gobind

The Star

A total of five government agencies and nine private companies were affected by the global information technology (IT) outage on July 19, says Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo.  The government agencies named were the Transport Ministry, Education Ministry, Rural and Regional Development Ministry, National Institute of Health and Kedah Zakat Board.  Read more at https://shorturl.at/egpor  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

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00:00This incident has affected several organisations in Malaysia, including five affected government agencies.

00:08Among the agencies involved are the Ministry of Immigration, the Ministry of Education of Malaysia,

00:16the Ministry of Development of Villages and Regions, the four Institutes of State Health,

00:25the five Institutes of State Health.

00:29I have been informed that this was not a cyber attack.

00:36It happened due to a weakness in the current cloud-stripe packaging system.

00:45This weakness has affected the Microsoft operating system

00:51and users who use Microsoft cannot access their computer systems.

00:59However, the IT system in the five agencies that I mentioned earlier,

01:05namely the government agencies, has fully recovered.

01:12Although this incident was not described as a cyber attack,

01:19the Ministry of Digital Affairs took this incident very seriously.

01:24This is because, as we understand, this incident is a disruption that has a great impact on the users of the system.

01:36It shows that there is a weakness in the process of the technology system.

01:41And these weaknesses can cause damage and great loss.

01:48And if it happens again, we should be careful.

01:55This is even more so when we have a great dependence on digital technology in our daily work,

02:04whether we are in the government agency or in the private sector.

02:09There are many services all over the world, from transportation services, medical services,

02:15to banking services, which are experiencing IT disruptions.

02:20This has also caused damage that has led to financial implications.

02:28After this incident, we see that there are many domains that are created by irresponsible parties,

02:39where they have carried out so-called phishing exercises,

02:44where they claim that they can help affected parties,

02:50they ask for information from those parties,

02:53and those parties provide the information because they want the help.

02:58But in fact, these parties are non-existent parties,

03:01and they are irresponsible parties,

03:04and they use the information and data for the wrong purposes.

03:08The government is concerned and serious about the data,

03:12about the safety of the portal, the safety of the platform, and so on.

03:17So when there is such a problem, the government takes it very seriously.

03:22To ensure that we can increase the trust of the people in the existing platforms,

03:30we have to make sure that when such an incident occurs,

03:34we call on the involved parties, Microsoft and CrowdStrike,

03:41and ask them to provide a report,

03:43tell us what has actually happened,

03:46how many people have been damaged, lost,

03:51and what steps will be taken to ensure that this does not happen again.

03:55We have been told that there are different sectors involved,

03:57different sectors have suffered in different ways,

04:00and of course some of them measure their losses in terms of monetary losses,

04:06some don't, so we have asked for a full report that gives us an indication of that.

04:12We haven't got the report yet,

04:13but by and large we have also been informed that there are companies that have suffered losses.

04:17As I said earlier, I have told those responsible that if claims are put forward,

04:22I think they should look into those claims and see how far they can entertain those claims,

04:25and if possible try and resolve the problem.

04:41That's what I said earlier,

04:42the actions that we have suggested,

04:44as I have stated earlier,

04:46what has happened is a weakness in their system,

04:48they are well aware of this weakness,

04:51and what we need to make sure of now is that this does not happen again.

04:55We need to give them a firm direction,

05:00so that the authorities are put in place,

05:03to make sure that all the information that is released after this,

05:07is ensured to be safe before it is released.

05:11And if there is a problem,

05:13then we need to create a system to identify how we can move forward at that time,

05:19so that we can cover up the damage that has happened and so on.

05:24This incident is one that shows us that all systems have their weaknesses,

05:29and the government needs to be careful.

05:31We need to take firm action,

05:34to give a clear message and signal,

05:39that moving forward,

05:41we want to encourage everyone to use the existing digital platforms.

05:45In this situation,

05:46we need to assure the Malaysians that these digital systems are safe.

05:50And if there is a problem,

05:52then there is a response plan,

05:55where we can see that the safety is prioritised,

05:59and the problem can be solved as soon as possible.

06:02And if there is damage and so on,

06:04and there is a demand from the financial side,

06:07the responsible parties will also look at that aspect.

06:11Is the government taking the brunt of the blame for this drought strike?

06:15Are they all blaming the government only now?

06:18Is that why you came here?

06:19No, I think, number one,

06:21when the incident occurred on Friday,

06:23there was a lot of questions asked as to what was actually happening.

06:26But after a while, people recognised the fact that this was not just an incident

06:31that was, what you call, reserved to Malaysia.

06:33It was an incident that impacted on different countries across the globe.

06:38Then after that, of course,

06:39there was a question of information as to what the actual problem was.

06:43And I think as we went along,

06:45people were a bit concerned as to whether or not this was actually a cyber attack,

06:49and if it was, then what we were going to do was to go to resolve it.

06:52So this is the reason why I've asked for a report.

06:54The report has come forward.

06:55I think people understand it's an outage,

06:58and we know the reasons why.

07:01The question now is what are we going to do moving forward.

07:03So there are two parts to it.

07:04One, the government, of course, and my ministry,

07:07would assure everyone that we have security at the uppermost of our mind.

07:12If you look at what we have done since January,

07:14we've actually moved Parliament very quickly to bring into force different legislation.

07:19For example, the Cyber Security Act, amendments to the PDPA recently.

07:23Those are steps taken to, of course, strengthen security.

07:27When we look at incidents like this,

07:30where you have systems that are currently existing,

07:32and then problems are exposed as you go along,

07:35then, of course, the question is how government deals with that.

07:38So we've called the necessary parties involved,

07:42asked them to come to our ministry,

07:43explain to us what actually has happened,

07:45what steps they have taken to ensure that it does not happen again,

07:48and, of course, we have set the lines very, very clearly

07:51in respect of what we expect of them,

07:54the highest of standards,

07:56make sure that these incidents do not happen again,

07:58and, of course, if they happen,

08:00we set very clearly what we call a response plan to deal with incidents like this.

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