Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob today revealed that his personal Telegram account has been hacked by ‘irresponsible individuals’. Furthermore, he also urged for anyone that have received messages from the account to disregard its content and report the matter to the authorities.
Sharing the matter on his official Twitter account, Ismail did not elaborate on how the account was compromised by hackers. However, the incident does highlight cyber security issues in our country, as if the Prime Minister’s own personal account can be hacked, it could definitely happen to anyone.
This latest high-profile hacking incident follows a rising concern on cyber security in country recently which includes an increased number of online scam cases. In fact, as reported by our sister website TechNave BM, Malaysia is actually ranked amongst the worst nations in the world in terms of cyber security.
Previously, we reported that there’s a rampant phishing scam going around via SMS which uses a fake Touch ’n Go website to deceive users. Besides that, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) also recently issued a PSA on a fake SMS scam from ‘GOV’ that tried to deceive users by saying that it is linked to MySejahtera.
Earlier this year, the Royal Malaysia Police (PDRM) reported that over RM2 million were lost to online fraud from January to March 2022 with many of the cases involving compromised Telegram accounts. In a report by Bernama, Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) director Datuk Mohd Kamaruddin Md. Din advised Telegram users to activate two-step verification on the app to avoid having their accounts being hacked.
Accordingly, all you have to do to activate two-step verification on your Telegram account is to go to your Settings tab, select 'Privacy and Security' and then select the 'Two-Step Verification' option. Telegram will then prompt you to add an add an additional password and an optional recovery e-mail to activate the feature.
So, what do you guys think of the state of cyber security in Malaysia? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below and stay tuned to TechNave for more trending tech news.
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