“We have not received any official complaint regarding the use of black magic. I do not wish to comment further on the matter,” he was reported by The Star Online as saying.
This was in response to a Harian Metro news report that quoted Cybersecurity’s communications officer Jazannul Azriq Aripin as making such a claim.
“The whole thing has been blown out of proportion,” Amirudin said, explaining it was only a casual remark and did not represent the federal agency’s official position on the matter.
Jazannul merely stated that there had been reported cases of “bomoh” (local shamans) purportedly using pictures on social media sites, such as Facebook, to hex their victims.
“Do not be surprised if the ‘bomoh’ themselves are getting smarter and they may have installed wireless broadband to launch their black magic,” he told the local Malay daily.
“So, avoid uploading pictures of yourself to avoid the threat of black magic.”
Amirudin did, however, urge netizens to take precautions when using the Internet, saying that people could face both financial and emotional damage when their pictures or personal information was misused by unscrupulous quarters.
“Nowadays, of course, we put a lot of our information on social media, so we have to be very careful,” he said.
Amirudin however added that cyber security threats in Malaysia were “under control”, and that the country had been ranked among the best in the world in terms of readiness to face such threats.
“We have not had major cyber attack incidents like what happened in Estonia or South Korea,” he said, adding that the agency was constantly prepared for worst-case scenarios.