Murray Hunter
IMAGINE you are a high-ranking Malaysian civil servant driving to a confidential state briefing on national security.
To beat the notorious Kuala Lumpur traffic, you prop up your smartphone and open Waze. It seems harmless—a simple, everyday tool to find the fastest route.
But potential breaches of national sovereignty are not restricted to Waze.
But behind the scenes, your precise location, your daily patterns, and the exact destination of a state official are being beamed to servers governed by foreign laws.
This exact vulnerability is why Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim recently issued a sweeping directive banning civil servants from using Waze.
For the average user, Waze is just a navigation app. For the government, it represents a massive national security loophole.
To understand why the administration took such drastic action, it helps to look at a broader, invisible web of tech security.
From high-level enterprise tools like Wiz and Cado Security to national watchdogs like the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), the battle to protect Malaysia’s digital borders is heating up.
The Corporate Shield: Proactive Eyes and Digital Detectives
To understand how data is secured on a national scale, we first have to look at how major global corporations protect themselves.
In the tech industry, two major players—Wiz and Cado Security (the latter now a part of the cyber giant Darktrace)—have formed a powerful alliance to stop hackers.
Think of Wiz as a round-the-clock security guard for the cloud.
It constantly scans massive digital networks, looking for unlocked doors, weak points, or active digital break-ins.
The moment Wiz catches a hacker trying to infiltrate a system, it calls in Cado Security, the digital forensic detective.
Cado instantly takes a digital "snapshot" of the compromised server.
It freezes the evidence in time so tech experts can investigate exactly how the hacker got in, what they stole, and how to kick them out—all without altering the digital crime scene.
From Corporate Tech to National Defence: MCMC’s Role
This enterprise-grade defensive strategy is exactly the kind of ecosystem Malaysia is building under its Cyber Security Act.
This is where the MCMC comes in. While many Malaysians know the MCMC as the agency that regulates telcos or blocks scam websites, it also serves as a frontline defender of Malaysia’s digital infrastructure.
Working hand-in-hand with the National Cyber Security Agency (NACSA), the MCMC operates a specialised Network Security Centre.
If a major threat looms over Malaysia’s telecommunications network, the MCMC coordinates with local internet providers and tech firms to harden their defences, using advanced forensic capabilities to trace and block cyber threats before they can take down vital communications.
Why Waze Crosses the Line for Anwar Ibrahim
If Malaysia is using top-tier tech to defend its back-end infrastructure, why is a consumer app like Waze causing so much alarm at the highest levels of government?
PMX’s directive highlights three major risks that enterprise firewalls cannot fix:
Foreign Jurisdiction: Waze was originally developed in Israel before being bought by Google.
Because of its corporate roots and global data structures, the information it gathers can fall under foreign legal jurisdictions. Anwar emphasised that allowing Malaysian state data to sit in foreign-regulated databases compromises the country’s digital sovereignty.
Pattern Mapping: A navigation app doesn't just know where you are; it learns your habits.
If thousands of government officials use the app daily, a foreign entity or a sophisticated malicious actor could theoretically map out the movements, meeting habits, and daily routines of Malaysia’s leadership.
The Push for "Made in Malaysia":
To reclaim control over this data, the government isn't just saying "no" to Waze—it is actively encouraging a shift toward localised alternatives.
Anwar’s administration has urged the use of TuJu, a homegrown navigation app developed by the Malaysian Highway Authority (Lembaga Lebuhraya Malaysia), ensuring that Malaysian movement data stays firmly within Malaysian borders.
The Bigger Picture
The connection between advanced corporate tools like Wiz and Cado, regulatory bodies like the MCMC, and Anwar’s Waze ban tells a singular story: data is the new currency of national security.
Cybersecurity is no longer just about stopping viruses on a laptop.
Whether it is a multi-billion-dollar corporation automating its defences or a Prime Minister locking down the smartphones of his civil servants, the ultimate goal remains the same—guarding the perimeter, keeping data local, and ensuring that Malaysia holds the keys to its own digital kingdom. – November 9, 2026
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