Indonesia’s tax agency probes alleged data breach affecting Jokowi, 6 million taxpayers

JAKARTA – Indonesia’s tax agency is investigating an alleged data breach that exposes the taxpayer identification numbers of millions of Indonesians, including President Joko Widodo, his ministers and his two sons, an official said.

A series of cyber attacks have hit Indonesian companies and government agencies in the past few years, which experts attribute to the government’s lax protection of personal data.

Mr Teguh Aprianto, a cyber-security expert, posted a screenshot on social media platform X on Sept 18 containing the samples of national identity and taxpayer identification numbers of six million Indonesians, including Mr Widodo and some of his ministers.

The tax agency is looking into the “circulating information of a data breach”, Ms Dwi Astuti, an official with the agency, said on Sept 18 without giving details.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the legitimacy of the data breach. Mr Widodo said on Sept 19 that data breaches also happen in other countries and urged relevant ministries to mitigate the problems imminently, state news agency Antara reported.

Mr Teguh said that exposing taxpayer data could attract targeted attacks from scam operations, which “could result in material or immaterial loss”, adding that it could also expose people’s earnings or transactions data.

The alleged breach follows

a ransomware attack in June

that paralysed several government services such as immigration and operations at major airports, prompting the government to conduct an audit. REUTERS