The Minister of Digital Technologies of Uzbekistan, Sherzod Shermatov, commented on the statement by the hacker group Butterfly regarding the potential leak of personal data of 27 million citizens. He emphasized that neither the incident itself nor the number of victims claimed by the perpetrators has yet been confirmed. At the same time, the group stated that it did not hack the systems or carry out a direct leak, but merely wanted to demonstrate the feasibility of such an attack.
According to Shermatov, the development of artificial intelligence is accompanied by the emergence of new cyber threats, which is why investments in security must become an obligatory part of digitalization. Modern tools make it possible to identify vulnerabilities in outdated information systems, and the number of detected issues is growing noticeably. The minister warned that the absence of new data publications does not guarantee protection against future incidents.
Shermatov urged government agencies, private organizations, and companies to regularly conduct audits of their systems, promptly eliminate vulnerabilities, and increase cybersecurity spending. In his view, special attention must be paid to training qualified professionals capable of countering increasingly sophisticated attacks.