Minister Shermatov comments on recent cyberattack and personal data leak

The statement came amid earlier reports circulating online that personal data of up to 15 million Uzbeks had been compromised. Officials dismissed those claims as inaccurate, clarifying that the actual number of affected individuals was significantly lower.

According to Shermatov, the attacks targeted information systems operated by three state institutions. While unauthorized access did occur, the scale of the breach was limited to approximately 60,000 citizens.

Authorities said urgent measures were taken to contain the incident and prevent further unauthorized access. Technical safeguards across government information infrastructure were reinforced, and additional protective mechanisms were introduced.

Enhanced security measures were also implemented within the national Unified Identification System (OneID). Citizens have now been given expanded options to control how their personal data is shared with other systems, including the ability to grant or restrict access based on their consent.

Officials emphasized that a “personal data leak” does not mean that individual user accounts were hacked. In most cases, the compromised information may have included elements such as a person’s full name, date of birth, address, or phone number – not complete account credentials.

Shermatov stressed that possession of such data does not enable fraudsters to carry out transactions or legal actions on behalf of a citizen without their direct participation. However, he warned that cybercriminals may use the obtained information as a tool for deception, attempting to manipulate victims into disclosing additional sensitive details through follow-up scams.

While the immediate threat of unauthorized actions on behalf of affected citizens has been ruled out, authorities acknowledged that the leaked data could be exploited in social engineering schemes.

An investigation into the incident is ongoing.