The internet can be a scary place and there’s many corners that should never be explored such as the dark web.

The dark web is a  small subset of the deep web, which is part of the internet that is not found using search engines. That includes many websites that require users to log in with an username and password, and the deep web is estimated to be about 400 to 500 times larger than the common internet.

Any information can be leaked onto the dark web; photos, videos or classified documents and it was reported that our very own Royal Malaysian Navy has been a victim of leaked information.

Singaporean newspaper, Straits Times yesterday has revealed that around 70 documents belonging to the Royal Malaysian Navy (TLDM) have been leaked through the dark web. The leaked documents apparently were collected through hacked e-mail accounts belonging to military personnel, according to the report.

Some of the information revealed in the leaked documents are its troop strength during a holiday season last year at certain TLDM and Malaysia Armed Force (ATM) bases, along with naval examination requirements and disciplinary cases involving TLDM officers. A letter containing details of radar equipment and frequencies for a US Navy vessel that made a visit to Sabah last year was issued.

A few hours after it was made public, TLDM responded to the report with a statement confirming that an investigation is already underway.

TLDM also said that it has identified the leaked documents as outdated and has no effect on its operations as well as readiness. Despite the leak, it insists that the ICT system of TLDM that is under the Cyber Defence Operation Center of ATM HQ is still well-grounded.

This is a very scary thing to happen. The whole Malaysian defence sector, including TLDM, ATM and TUDM need to take immediate action because cyber-attacks is something very serious and if they can hack to steal classified documents then who knows what they will do with the information. Or worse.