The Education Ministry’s School Examination Analysis System (Saps) has been suspended due to security concerns over an alleged attack, amid concerns it could have led to a massive data breach.

Education Minister Maszlee Malik said the temporary measure was taken as the ministry is in the process of analysing claims of the security breach which it received yesterday. 

"As a precautionary measure I have instructed the ministry to temporarily shut down the system. 

"At the same time, we are conducting an in-depth security analysis to identify weaknesses in our system and will take immediate action once we have a solution in place," he said in a statement.

Maszlee further apologised for the alarm caused, and said in the long term, the ministry would update its project and risk management processes for all of its projects in order to prevent a repeat of such issues. 

"Everything else including our website and applications will be running as usual.

"I truly appreciate everyone's feedback and concern over the issue," he added. 

Online portal Malay Mail earlier today reported that the Saps website was taken offline following the discovery of a security exploit that could have potentially exposed the personal details of more than 10 million citizens. 

The portal said it later alerted the Computer Emergency Response Team (MyCERT), following consultations with tech blogger Keith Rozario, who has covered data breaches extensively, and Khairil Yusof, the co-founder of local technology advocacy group Sinar Project. 

'System flawed from day one'

The report also quoted a source who claimed that he could download the data of 4,940,203 students from the server.

This, the source reportedly claimed, could in turn potentially expose over 10.3 million Malaysians to the breach, since the information of parents is also linked within.

"The system has been flawed since day one," the anonymous source was quoted as saying. 

According to the report, the potentially compromised data included the MyKad numbers of students and their parents. 

Rozario, meanwhile, was quoted as saying that the data also involved around 450,000 current and retired teachers – aged between 19 and 85 – which included the subjects they teach or taught and the schools that they are attached to.

Saps is a portal launched in 2011 for students and their parents to access their examination results online, by entering the students’ MyKad number.

The data can also be retrieved by the District Education Office, National Registration Department and the Education Ministry.