Mahfud Said Ratas Were Bugged, BSSN Was Asked To Make A Video Conference Application

Illustration (Photo: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay)

JAKARTA - The National Cyber and Crypto Agency (BSSN) should not only issue recommendations on the use of a secure video-conference platform for officials in conducting virtual meetings.

This institution must start making its own platform as a long-term solution. Moreover, the government has increasingly held meetings virtually in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs (Menkopolhukam) Mahfud MD suspected that the limited meeting (Ratas) between cabinet ministers and President Jokowi was bugged.

This suspicion arises because a number of discourses that are still being discussed by the government often leak out in the community and cause polemics.

"The middle and long-term solution is to produce our own applications. So, control and security are always done by ourselves to check and repair. We can, we have many great IT engineers and BSNN can produce it with professionals," said cybersecurity expert, Pratama. Persadha to VOI, Tuesday, May 19.

Even if you can't create your own application, he said, the cabinet meeting should be sure to use an application that is more secure in encryption.

This is because tapping is very likely to occur when in a virtual meeting, the cabinet actually uses an unsafe application such as Zoom.

However, he considered, the leak of this cabinet meeting could have happened due to other reasons. For example, there are those who deliberately leaked it to their network with any motive or accidentally leaked it because initially it was just chat material.

"This can (be done) by anyone. It could be the officials, it could also be people who helped carry out the meeting. Because the meeting is online, it is not completely sterile like meetings in the palace," he said.

"There are people who are usually not in the palace, now at the meeting location of every online attendant such as household assistants, personal assistants, and others," added Pratama.

Even if the wiretaps took place, he was not sure if the ones being tapped were the networks used by the president at the State Palace. Although it is not impossible, however, it seems more difficult for a third party to do that.

Wiretapping, he said, is very likely to occur at the homes of ministers who are also involved in the prison, especially if they live in private homes.

Stealing hearing this conversation, according to Primary, can be done in various ways. This includes placing the remote tapping device or deliberately placing the device at the location of the ratas participants.

"Therefore, ensure that the network and computers are completely safe. Now what must be secured is not only the palace but all the houses of the meeting participants, namely members of the cabinet. There must be a special location in the house that is free from wiretapping and uses secure networks and computers," he explained.

In addition, you must ensure that the applications currently used during cabinet meetings are completely safe. The trick is to know the true mechanism of the system. "Are they using their own servers and their own technology or are the information and communications passed to third party servers such as Zoom," he said.

There must be a protocol to regulate the official assistant when virtual ratas

Intelligence observer Stanislaus Riyanta said that tapping of state officials' communication tools could indeed happen. So he considered, there must be protection for the communication tools of state officials to avoid information leakage.

Moreover, this kind of case had happened before and involved a public official in Indonesia with officials from other countries. Thus, vigilance must be increased when discussing important and strategic issues in limited meetings.

In addition, he considered, the Presidential Palace protocol should make a standard operating procedure (SOP) regarding the personal assistants of ministers who are in the room where the minister carries out the ratas with the president.

Although it is unlikely that they will leak the contents of the meeting because before carrying out their duties they are screened first, but prevention must still be done.

"It is better to make SOPs to ensure that all meeting participants related to crucial issues must be sterile," said Stanislaus.

If wiretapping occurs again, he assesses that the source of the spread must be taken firmly. Stanislaus also assessed that the Presidential Palace must follow the recommendation from BSSN considering that this institution is responsible for the field of state cyber and code.

"Of course it takes a lot of effort because the threat of wiretapping will continue to happen and the tappers will continue to look for loopholes," he concluded.