JAKARTA, Sept 19 — Indonesia's tax agency is investigating an alleged data breach that exposed the taxpayer identification numbers of millions of Indonesians, including President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, his ministers and his two sons.
A series of cyber-attacks have hit Indonesian companies and government agencies in the past few years, which experts attribute to the government's lax protection of personal data.
Cybersecurity expert Teguh Aprianto posted a screenshot on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) yesterday containing the samples of national identity and taxpayer identification numbers of six million Indonesians, including Jokowi and some of his ministers.
The Directorate General of Taxes is looking into the "circulating information of a data breach," said agency official Dwi Astuti late yesterday without providing details.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the legitimacy of the data breach. Today, Jokowi said that data breaches also happen in other countries and urged the relevant ministries to mitigate the problems imminently, state news Antara reported.
Teguh told Reuters exposing taxpayer data could attract targeted attacks from scam operations, which "could result in material or immaterial loss," adding it could also expose people's earnings or transactions data.
The alleged breach follows a ransomware attack in June that paralysed several government services including immigration and operations at major airports, prompting the government to conduct an audit.
— Reuters
