A major new security hole has seen the phone data of "almost all Malaysians" put on sale for a single bitcoin.

One of the biggest data breaches in Asia

In what Reuters describes as "one of the biggest data breaches in Asia," hackers gained access to 46 million customer identities. These include "lists of mobile numbers, ID numbers, residential addresses and SIM card data".

"This stolen data could have an impact on almost all Malaysians," said CTO FireEye, a cybersecurity company.

The news follows massive security breaches at Equifax and Deloitte, the former having gained notoriety due to the laxity of their computer security that was updated in subsequent investigations. As a reminder, the US credit company had been hit by a security breach after it was revealed that its database had "admin / admin" as username and password ...

The investigation is in progress

The hacking of phone data was discovered last month. The Malaysian government is reported to be identifying several likely sources of leakage as part of a comprehensive investigation. Salleh Said Keruak, Minister of Communications and Multimedia Malaysia said:

"We have identified several potential sources of the leak and we should be able to complete the investigation in a short time"

The security experts' reactions have shown that the personal data of Malaysian mobile customers could now be part of a new generation of fraudulent identities.

The mass of data stolen by hackers was however on sale for a relatively small amount. A single bitcoin, about 6,200 euros at the time of writing these lines.