Big Data Leak in Pakistan: Where Is the Government Control?

Syed Khalid Muhammad, Executive Director - CommandEleven, spoke with MediaLine's Arshad Mehmood in regards to the massive data leak of Pakistan's National Database and Regulatory Authority (NADRA), and it being available online for purchase.

“This is neither the first nor likely the last major data breach in Pakistan. Over the years, several high-profile incidents have exposed the country’s digital vulnerabilities.”

Muhammad also noted that “this is at least the fifth major breach of Pakistan’s data networks, with little effort by successive governments to secure core databases. The problem has been growing since 2017, with no significant response from government, security, or intelligence institutions.”

Muhammad emphasized, “The latest national data breach continues this troubling trend, showing that institutional safeguards remain inadequate, putting ordinary citizens, corporations, service providers, and even government and military institutions at significant risk.”

He concluded that “agencies like the National Security Adviser’s Office, the Federal IT Ministry, the Intelligence Bureau, and the Federal Investigation Agency should have been directly tasked with preventing such hacks.”

CommandEleven also has a detailed study on past data breaches that is available here.

The full article can be read here and here (Jerusalem Post).