Minister Salleh Is Leaking Sweat

The Communications and Multimedia Minister declined to comment on a news report that the massive data breach of Malaysian mobile subscriptions could be traced to a company appointed by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).

“I don’t want to comment. Ask the MCMC,” Datuk Seri Dr Salleh Said Keruak told reporters in Parliament here on Monday.

Earlier Monday, an MCMC spokesperson said the ministry would address the issue in Parliament. This follows a special report by news portal Malaysiakini that after analysing the data from the breach, it traced the source to a company named Nuemera Sdn Bhd.

Each EIR was supposed to be linked to a Malaysian Central Equipment Identity Register (MCEIR), to which the IMEI codes of stolen phones would be forwarded, a telecommunications industry source told The Star at the time.

The source said all blacklisted IMEI codes would then be stored in the EIRs to render the phones unusable on any network and to block any attempt to reactivate the devices with new SIM cards. Once blocked, the phone cannot ever be reactivated.