SINGAPORE - Individuals whose full NRIC numbers were exposed on the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority's (Acra) database earlier in December face potential cyber-security risks, as organisations frequently rely on NRIC numbers to retrieve personal information.
Experts said the risks highlight how an NRIC number in the wrong hands can pose risks to individuals, who need to be vigilant against scams.SINGAPORE - Individuals whose full NRIC numbers were exposed on the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority's database earlier in December face potential cyber-security risks, as organisations frequently rely on NRIC numbers to retrieve personal information.
The concerns come after NRIC numbers belonging to key representatives of companies registered under Acra's database were revealed by mistake on its new Bizfile web portal on Dec 9. As a result, anyone could freely search and view the full NRIC numbers of registered individuals, including business' public representatives - some of whom are also politicians.
At e-kiosks in local healthcare institutions, checks by ST in the past week have found that entering an NRIC number can reveal its owner's registered address, contact number, recent appointment records and medical bills. The Registry of Marriages, a national database, allows users who have logged in via national authentication tool Singpass to look up to whom an individual is married. Users are limited to two free searches a year.
Calls by ST found that transactions over the phone are limited to fund transfers between the customer's own accounts with the bank and not to anyone else for security purposes.
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