KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Economy has taken swift action to address a number of issues regarding the Central Database Hub (PADU) system.

Its Minister Rafizi Ramli in a posting on X, said the issue where an individual’s identification card number can be used to override and change their passwords was resolved last night by the team in charge of handling PADU.

“Weaknesses in handling this authentication were not found during the Security Posture Assessment (SPA).

“The team took immediate action, and the solution was implemented within one hour and was completed on Jan 2, 2024, at 9.15 p.m.,” he said.

As of 10 a.m. today, a total of 233,782 people have registered with PADU, with 118,115 having completed eKYC (the electronic Know Your Customer process) and 71 percent having completed eKYC verification.

On the issue of bugs and vulnerabilities in the system, Rafizi said updating information can be done immediately after logging in without going through the eKYC process.

Rafizi said eKYC is only implemented once the information has been updated and the individual wants to verify and authenticate the profile submission.

Any information filled out without undergoing eKYC verification will not be integrated into PADU, and only data submitted by users who have successfully completed eKYC verification is considered valid.

“eKYC is a user identification verification process. Users must ensure that all updated information is saved on each variable, and once all of the information is saved, users must complete e-KYC to verify the updated new information,” he said.

In addition, Rafizi said the same phone number can be used up to five times to make it easier for household members (18 years and older) or parents who do not have a phone to register a PADU account.

Regarding complaints from individuals who were unable to fill out their household details, Rafizi said that in general, PADU is designed to centralise the information of every Malaysian citizen and permanent resident in the country.

“For this purpose, every individual over the age of 18 must have their own individual account, and for the purpose of household formation, individuals who are under one household must be included under one household together with other members, including those under the age of 18 and non-citizens.

“To ensure that household information is coordinated, only the head of the household is allowed to update the household.

“Verification for household members can only be made after the head of household has completed filling out their respective household information,” he said.

Therefore, Rafizi said each individual is encouraged to fill out information with other household members to facilitate the verification process.