State Minister for ICT Division Zunaid Ahmed Palak on Sunday said that due to technical weaknesses of the website of a government organisation, the leaking of sensitive personal information of Bangladeshi citizens on the internet happened.
Mentioning that the site was in a vulnerable stage, he said: "We have been that there was technical weakness. So, the information was exposed to people. It was not hacked. There is no scope to avoid responsibility for this occurrence."
The state minister was addressing the inauguration of the Bangabandhu International Cyber Security Awareness Award programme at the BCC Auditorium of ICT Tower in the city's Agargaon area as the chief guest.
In a report on July 7, TechCrunch, an online media based on information technology in the United States, said that the information of millions of people was leaked through the website of a government agency in Bangladesh.
It did not disclose the name of the website for security purposes.
Palak said that a 'Data Protection Act' is in the final stage to prevent such unwanted issues and keep the sovereignty of data intact.
He underscored the need for increasing awareness and technical knowledge in citizen protection.
In this regard, he said that to keep the cyber world safe, all need to give importance to four important levels such as individual, family, institutional and society.
"We need to raise awareness to protect ourselves from these cyber attacks. If someone wants to steal someone's money or information, they can steal it by doing a cyber attack," he added.
He urged everyone to be aware of cyber security in the current situation.
With Secretary of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division Md Shamsul Arefin in the chair, the event was addressed, among others, by Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority Managing Director Mohammad Rezaul Karim, Digital Security Agency Director General Abu Saeed Md Kamruzzaman, Bangladesh Computer Council (BCC) Executive Director Ranajit Kumar, Deputy Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Bangladesh Nguyen Thi Ngoc Van and International Children's Peace Prize Winner Sadat Rahman.
