Bjorka Effect, Indonesian Government Forms Data Protection Task Force

TheIndonesia.id - Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs (Menkopolhukam) Mahfud MD said that the government formed a data protection task force to protect especially state data, from various threats of leakage or hacking, as did by Bjorka.

"Well, we (the government) have created a task force to be more careful (protect and secure data)," said Mahfud at a press conference at the Kemenkopolhukam Office, Jakarta, Wednesday, September 14, 2022.

The formation of the task force and discussion of the hacking case by Bjorka has been through negotiations involving Mahfud MD as Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, Minister of Communication and Information of the Republic of Indonesia Jhonny G. Plate, Head of the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) Budi Gunawan, Head of the National Cyber and Crypto Agency (BSSN) Hinsa Siburian, and the National Police Chief Gen. Pol. Listyo Sigit Prabowo.

Furthermore, Mahfud also said that two things underlie the formation of the task force. First, he said, the hacking incident, especially the one claimed by someone named Bjorka, has reminded the Indonesian people of the importance of building a more sophisticated cybersecurity system. Second, he said that the formation of the task force is a mandate of the Personal Data Protection Blll which will soon be ratified by the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR).

So far, Mahfud said the Law on Personal Data Protection has been ratified at level I by the DPR and will soon be ratified at level II through a plenary session of the DPR.

Regarding the hacking carried out by Bjorka, according to Mahfud, the leaked data is general data, not state secret data. "This is only general data of a general nature and its contents so far none (state secret data) has been breached," said Mahfud.

In fact, according to Mahfud, the hacking motive by Bjorka was not a dangerous one, but it combines political, economic, buying, and selling issues. "There are no such motives that are too dangerous," he said.

Even so, Mahfud emphasized that the government is always serious in dealing with cases of data leakage. "We will take it seriously and have started to deal with this problem," he said.

Previously, Bjorka became a conversation because in 2022 he claimed to have succeeded in hacking several confidential data, ranging from data on Indonesian residents, SIM card user data, personal data of the Minister of Communications and Informatics Johnny G. Plate, as well as confidential document data belonging to Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), and several other national figures.

Bjorka claim was disseminated by a Twitter account "DarkTracer: DaekWeb Criminal Intelligence", which later went viral and became one of the most popular topics of discussion on Twitter.