Following up on the report of Lowyat.com roughly 46.2 million mobile phone numbers from Malaysian telcos and mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) have been leaked online.
The leak includes postpaid and prepaid numbers, customer details, addresses as well as sim card information – including unique IMEI and IMSI numbers.
Time stamps on the files indicate the leaked data was last updated between May and July 2014 between the various telcos. The specialist of Lowyat.com are fairly certain that the individual who tried to sell the data two weeks back acquired the data from public sources, and tried to make a quick profit by attempting to sell it on Forums.
In this day where everything is stored electronically, data security breaches are not something to be taken lightly. Any entity, public or private, that stores proprietary or sensitive data electronically could end up having that data stolen or lost – with catastrophic consequences.
While it is the task of the authorities to narrow down the source of the breach, and ensure that a similar incident doesn’t happen again, the key to containing any more serious damage is protecting the individuals affected by the breach.
Lowyat.com is urging the telco and MVNO companies mentioned above to alert and start immediately replacing the SIM cards of all affected customers, especially those who have not updated their SIM cards since 2014. While the leaked data alone isn’t sufficient to clone the SIM cards, the information available can be exploited to initiate multiple social engineering attacks against affected users.
