KUALA LUMPUR: Bukit Aman has opened a probe into allegations of a database being sold online that purportedly contains the personal data of millions of Malaysians.

       Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department director Comm Datuk Mohd Kamarudin Md Din confirmed receiving a police report on the matter.

       "Investigations are currently being carried out to determine the authenticity of the claims.

       "We urge the public to refrain from speculating on the matter," he said in a statement on Wednesday (May 18).

       He gave his assurance that an investigation would be carried out to ensure the issue is handled swiftly.

       An alleged data leak containing the information of 22.5 million Malaysians born between 1940 and 2004, purportedly stolen from the National Registration Department (NRD) has once again put the country’s data security measures in the spotlight.

       Local tech portal Amanz reported that the database, 160GB in size, is being sold for US$10,000 (RM43,950) on the dark web.

       In the screenshot shared by the portal, the seller claimed that this was an expanded database compared to the one he sold in September last year, which was only up to 1998.

       In both incidents, it was claimed that the data was syphoned from the NRD through the My Identity API.

       MyIdentity is a centralised data-sharing platform that is used by various government agencies.