Utusan Malaysia quoted National Security Council (MKN) director-general Raja Nushirwan Zainal Abidin as saying that nearly 20% of the 740 different ICT systems managed by various government bodies were completely non-functional.

He said about 150 of these systems, classified as “dormant”, have unknown ownership, reflecting a lack of awareness regarding data management among government officials.

“If measured on a scale of 0 to 10, I would rate it (government agencies’ ICT systems) at best a 2. In some cases, it could be a zero.

“This is the reality of cybersecurity in our country,” said Raja Nushirwan.

He said one of the causes for the weak ICT systems is the alleged collusion between government officials and IT vendors to procure such systems without the necessary scrutiny.

“When a division secretary joins a department, they have a friend who is a vendor selling that (ICT) system.

“They ‘collude’ (to install that ICT system at the department) leading to other problems,” he said during a town hall session on the National Security Index (IKK) at a hotel in Putrajaya.

Raja Nushirwan said the poor state of the government agencies’ ICT systems was due to complacency and a lack of appreciation for the value of data.

He said he found out there was no data on companies that had been blacklisted from bidding for public tenders. He found out about this after inquiring on the matter when leading a procurement committee.

Raja Nushirwan urged all public agencies to take a serious view of the weaknesses he had identified as these ICT systems contain official records which must be kept safe to maintain national security.

He said national security systems must be sophisticated and aligned with current needs to address issues such as counter-terrorism and deepfake technology.