The Malaysian Armed Forces has since last year established a cyber defence unit to safeguard military secrets about defence systems from being leaked or hacked.

Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein announced this today following an Australian newspaper report about a leak of secret data about the French-built Scorpene-class submarines, NST Online reported.

Hishammuddin said the cyber defence unit was under the Defence Staff Intelligence Division, the military intelligence agency of the armed forces.

He said there had been several unsuccessful attempts to infiltrate the country’s closely-guarded military secrets.

“This unit closely monitors cyber activities that pose a potential threat to the country’s defence system. It is also working towards strengthening the cyber defence system, conduct security posture audits as well as cyber forensics,” he told reporters here today.

The Royal Malaysian Navy has two Scorpene-class submarines, KD Tunku Abdul Rahman and KD Tun Abdul Razak. Military officials have said the leak reported in Australia was not about the Malaysian submarines, which were built to different specifications.