Malaysia Cyberattack Warning: Anwar Says the Country Is a Potential Target, Names No Incident

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim told the Dewan Rakyat on 3 November that "Malaysia is certainly among those considered potential targets" of cyberattacks. The National Security Council (MKN) had met in a special session the day before.

He didn't name an attacker, a target or any incident in Malaysia.

The warning rested on information received from the home minister the previous afternoon and that morning, The Edge reported. Anwar said Malaysia might be singled out because its "capabilities in the digital sphere and data centres are among the strongest", and because of its firm stance on issues some countries dispute. The cases he pointed to were Belgium's tax portal shutdown, a breach of Denmark's population register, a 41-hour outage of the US Federal Election Commission's filing system and more than 100,000 exposed Japanese police personnel records.

Recent attacks

The warning followed a second wave of attacks on supermarket fridge and freezer controls at European chains overnight into Monday, 2 November. Carrefour, Delhaize and Ikea were among the chains hit, and "several companies confirmed they had been hacked", The Guardian reported. In Malaysia, Tabung Haji suspended its services from 8 October after suspicious activity, and the country was among the worst-hit by the XCPE Android TV box botnet that Google and Japan's National Police Agency took down.

What the government is doing

Anwar named energy, transport, finance and food supply as the sectors to protect. Chief Secretary Shamsul Azri Abu Bakar and Bank Negara governor Abdul Rasheed Ghaffour were to hold separate meetings with government departments and financial institutions on 3 November. The National Cyber Security Agency (NACSA) took part in the MKN talks. Its public alert page shows nothing newer than 21 October.

The threat ministers describe is non-state actors using AI to break into systems along the supply chain, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said on 4 November at the Prime Minister's Deepavali open house in Brickfields. Bank Negara, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, NACSA and the Domestic Trade Ministry are working on a risk assessment and stress tests across sectors, he said. Anwar has offered MPs a closed-door briefing by the MKN director-general and said he'd "convene a Cabinet meeting immediately rather than wait until Friday" if things turn urgent.

What Malaysians are told

Anwar's message to the public on 4 November was short: "There is no need to panic."