LETTERS: It is undeniable that the Internet has a firm grip on almost every aspect of our daily activities, playing a critical role in the functioning of our nation.

The importance of the Internet became more apparent with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in delivering financial services, transportation, education, entertainment and many more.

The MyDIGITAL blueprint, launched by the prime minister earlier this year, represents the government’s aspirations to transform the nation into a digitally-driven, high-income country and be at the forefront of the digital economic drive regionally.

One of the goals of MyDIGITAL is to drive e-government initiatives to deliver government services using digital and Internet technologies.

These digitalisation initiatives will profoundly affect all the stakeholders in the country, as the government’s functions are intertwined with businesses and people’s activities.

Currently, many government services have already been transformed into online services. However, the borderless nature of cyberspace allows cyber attacks to be carried with ease from anywhere in the world.

Some of the risks of embracing e-government include data breaches, social engineering attacks, cloud vulnerabilities, ransomware, cyberattacks and break-ins.

Using a list of government websites on the Department of Statistics Malaysia, a staggering number of almost 13,000 subdomains were found simply by using scraping techniques on Google searches.

The number could be much higher if an active probing method is used. Some of these domains might be abandoned, while others could be hosting services, such as web, e-mail, file transfer, server access, database, or other custom services.

When it comes to web services, there is a misconception that using “https” is sufficient, even though these sites might still be vulnerable to attacks and breaches.

Other more severe threats that need attention include authentication exploits, SQL injection, cross-site scripting, open redirection, outdated/unpatched technologies, and many more.

The government should take preemptive action to address potential cybersecurity issues by roping in cybersecurity experts to carry out a full assessment and audit of the government’s online services.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DR SELVAKUMAR MANICKAM
Universiti Sains Malaysia

This article first appeared on NST.