Verity journal

(A Public Service Announcement)

Last week, Malaysia’s biggest data breach topped news headlines, where around 46.2 million mobile number subscribers had their information leaked. Personal details like home addresses, MyKad numbers to SIM card information are now fully exposed.

With only a population of around 32 million, this breach has potentially affected every single citizen in Malaysia.

However, many Malaysians still believe that identity theft would not happen to them or even if it happens, they would have nothing to lose. Let’s explore this more closely as to what kind of danger this breach poses to you.

• Potential Financial Loss: The wrong person with the right information can access your savings account or credit card details to steal your funds, leaving you penniless.
• Threats to Personal Security: With access to your personal home address, the wrong people could pose a physical threat to your personal safety.
• Scapegoat for Criminal Charges: Your stolen identity can be used to commit crimes, yet the person that bears the brunt of the crimes could be you.
• Registering business or accounts without your knowledge: Businesses or credit cards can be registered under your name without you knowing it, as long as the correct information can be provided.
• Impact your records for future employment: A criminal or financial record tainted by an identity thief may also raise eyebrows during job interviews and a pre-hire background screen.
• Targeted Scams and Spam: The data breach also allows scammers to target you with scams, spam, malware or phishing attempts.

In light of the massive data breach, we all need to take steps to secure our data as negligence might lead to monetary, personal and professional ramifications. As they say, prevention is better than cure. So, it is a good idea to monitor your own financial and credit activities, periodical credit history check or touching base with your bank about credit card transactions can be helpful to alert you to any suspicious activities.

This article may be a departure from our usual topics of background screening for the pre-hiring process, however, as we at Verity Intelligence deal with personal data everyday, we understand and fully agree with Lowyat.net that the danger is very real and could affect us personally as well as our loved ones.  

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