Experts have urged the government and lawmakers to immediately enact the data protection bill, which will provide guidelines for law enforcement agencies to impose stern penalties against the illegal use of personal data.
ecent cyberattacks on state agencies — one related to the National Cyber and Encryption Agency (BSSN) and another that puts child victims of abuse at risk — further underline the urgent need for effective cybersecurity and personal data protection.
On Oct. 21, an alleged Brazilian hacker named SonIx defaced the website of the national malware center hosted by the BSSN, an agency that is supposed to detect and prevent cyberattacks, as retaliation for what SonIx claimed was the hacking of a Brazilian government website by Indonesian hackers.
BSSN spokesperson Anton Setiyawan told The Jakarta Post that the agency was still conducting an investigation to ensure that no data was stolen, adding that pusmanas.bssn.go.id had been temporarily disabled.
The incident occurred only a week after the Indonesian Child Protection Commission's (KPAI) database of the personal information of people who filed reports on alleged child abuse cases, like bullying, kidnapping, violence against children and rape, was hacked on Oct. 13. The data also included sensitive data on abused children.
The breach exposed names of the children and their guardians, as well as ID card numbers, mailing and email addresses and phone numbers of the persons who reported the alleged abuse.
An account with the username C77 on online hacking forum RaidForums has put up for sale the data of almost 25,000 reports filed with the KPAI from 2016 to the present, koran.tempo.co reported.
Read also: Reported leak adds urgency for speedy passage of data protection bill: House speaker
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