As Malaysia deploys its MyKAD, the general multipurpose smartcard that is one of the flagships of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project, information security plays a vital role, on the one hand to guarantee the security of information contained within and used with MyKAD, and on the other to obtain public trust and confidence in their use of MyKAD.  If MyKAD is to see real application as the identity card (IC), driving license, passport, e-cash and health information all rolled into one, then the latter is of utmost importance.

The driving force behind the security of MyKAD is iVEST (Virtual Environment for Secure Transactions), a Public-Key Infrastructure (PKI) developed by a subsidiary of MiMOS Bhd of the same name.  Research and development is ongoing at MiMOS to develop secure iVEST applications for use in MyKAD.

Seeing the need for more research to be concentrated on the security analysis of MyKAD, as well as on the development of other information security techniques such as cryptography and authentication protocols, an Information Security Research (iSECURES) Lab is set up at Swinburne Sarawak to spearhead research in this area, to engage in collaborative research work both with external parties in an effort to bring the security level of MyKAD and other homegrown information security techniques on par with international standards.