Personal info of 70,000 people in Singapore exposed in data breach

PETALING JAYA: The personal data of about 70,000 people in Singapore was exposed in a cybersecurity incident involving an IBM-managed cloud environment, the Singapore Land Authority said today.

Preliminary investigations found “unauthorised access to a data set created for the sole purpose of vendor development and testing” in a cloud environment managed by IBM for the Singapore Titles Automated Registration System and eLodgment System, according to a statement quoted by the Turkish news agency Anadolu.

The authority said the dataset, created in 1998 and updated periodically, was intended to contain only mock and anonymised records but instead included the names, identity card numbers, and addresses of about 70,000 people.

“This information should have been anonymised but was not. Investigations are continuing to determine how this occurred,” the SLA said.

The authority said the affected testing environment is separate from its operational systems which were not compromised. It said property ownership and lodgement records remain secure and unaffected.

A police report has been filed and the Personal Data Protection Commission notified.