SERI KEMBANGAN, March 31 ― Local regulators have not received any official complaint of black magic practitioners allegedly using “selfies” from social media sites for their work, Cybersecurity Malaysia CEO Dr Amirudin Abdul Wahab has said.
Amirudin said the claim, made by a staffer earlier this month, was just a casual remark and did not represent the federal agency’s official position on the matter.
“We have not receive any official complaint regarding the use of black magic. So I do not wish to comment further on that matter,” Amirudin said when asked about the Harian Metro news report that quoted the claim by Cybersecurity’s communications officer Jazannul Azriq Aripin.
“The whole thing has been blown out of proportion,” he added.
Amirudin did, however, urge Malaysians to take more precaution when using the Internet, saying passwords should be changed constantly to prevent identity theft and hacking.
“Nowadays, of course, we put a lot of our information on social media, so we have to be very careful,” he said.
“Because when incidences like these happen ― we are not only talking about financial loss, but also emotional damage. Some people have their reputation or dignity damage, some people have phobia to use the Internet again after that,” he added.
But in general, Amirudin said cyber security threats in Malaysia are “under control”, also noting that the country has 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.
However, the agency is constantly preparing for worst case scenarios, he stressed.
In Harian Metro’s March 8 report, Jazasnnul was quoted claiming that there have been reported cases of “bomoh” or local shamans purportedly using pictures on social media sites such as Facebook to supposedly 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.”
He did not elaborate on what occurred in the cases he cited or how “black magic” worked online.
CyberSecurity Malaysia is an agency under the Science Technology and Innovation Ministry. It was launched in 2007 by former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to promote care and safety on using the Internet.
