KUALA LUMPUR: There have been more than two million daily attempts to infiltrate the Central Database Hub (Padu) in its early days of inception, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Economy Minister Rafizi Ramli said however, no party succeeded in infiltrating the system as Padu's security features complied with global standards. He assured that all data registered on Padu were encrypted.

He said the team that developed Padu is led by the National Digital Department in collaboration with several cybersecurity and national data privacy agencies including the Chief Government Security Officer, the National Cybersecurity Agency Malaysia, CyberSecurity Malaysia, Personal Data Protection Department, as well as the Communications Ministry and the Digital Ministry.

"These strategic cooperations help reduce the risk of data leakage and prioritise personal data privacy.

"Each data registered on Padu is encrypted. This means that even if there was a successful attempt to hack the system and download the files, it has to be decrypted.

"An exception is if the hacker is a supercomputer capable of decrypting data, but that is nonsense," he said.

Rafizi said this in a reply to Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail (Pakatan Harapan-Bandar Tun Razak), who had asked about the government's measures to ensure data on Padu is protected from any form of misuse.

He added that a majority of the attempts to penetrate Padu data was from overseas, and "risky" locations.

He, however did not reveal the origins of the attempts.

"Insya-Allah, we will ensure the security of Padu while also ensuring that no exclusions occur during registration," said Rafizi.

As at 11.59pm on Monday night, a total of 8,093,336 Malaysians aged 18 and above had registered for Padu, representing 36.8 per cent of the total.

He said the ministry was seeing an average of 350,000 to 400,000 registrations daily, and was confident that they would achieve the 50 per cent target in the last six days of the registration period.

Registration for Padu closes on March 31.

https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2024/03/1030726/more-2-million-attempts-infiltrate-padu-daily-says-rafizi-nsttv